Why all Data should not be Encrypted
Data encryption is considered one of the best approaches to promoting information security in business and other institutions. However, some companies are opposed to the idea of encrypting all data because of some obstacles, such as unavailability to stakeholders, including the public when needed. Data is a critical asset that needs to be secured; however, the security techniques employed should not compromise its current and future availability. Therefore, organizations should carefully evaluate the type of data that needs to be encrypted and leave the rest in a readable format for easy access.
Encrypting data involves the use of encryption keys, making the task significant for information technology specialists. This means that a larger number of encryption keys makes is challenging for IT specialists to effectively conduct their administrative tasks. Managing many keys can make IT managers to shift their attention from important keys, thus making them vulnerable to attackers. Additionally, if an encryption key is lost, the organization risks losing all the data associated with it (Stephen, 2014). Although all data is important organizations should only encrypt sensitive information to enhance the security of the keys and the data.
Moreover, data encryption has some technological requirements, which most organizations lack the expertise to understand. The lack of understanding can lead to the implementation of unrealistic standards that can compromise data encryption security. Additionally, not all data in an organization is compatible with encryption, especially when the technique is layered with other applications and programs. This can affect other routine operations linked to the information. Data encryption is also a costly venture, especially for medium and small organizations. Encrypting all information will lead to high maintenance and upgrading costs of encryption systems to ensure that they always have the capacity to perform required tasks (Masoud et al., 2015).
References
Masoud, M., Jannoud, I., Ahmad, A., & Al-Shobaky, H. (2015). The power consumption cost of
data encryption in smartphones. International Conference on Open Source Software
Computing (OSSCOM), Amman, 1-6, doi: 10.1109/OSSCOM.2015.7372685.
Stephen, O. (2014). The study of the application of data encryption techniques in cloud storage
to ensure stored data integrity and availability. International Journal of Scientific and
Research Publications, 4(10).