What are the best practices for encrypting data at rest and in transit?

- Strong Encryption Algorithms like AES 256 bit - robust key management practices. Store encryption keys securely - full-disk encryption - Encrypt backups - Use MFA and RBAC - Ensure that encryption methods meet regulatory standards like GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS. - Ensure End-to-End Encryption like SSL, HTTPS, SSH - valid digital certificates to establish trust between communicating entities. Certificates should be issued by a trusted CA. - Ensure that APIs transmitting sensitive data use HTTPS. - Deploy firewalls and IDS/IPS to monitor and block any suspicious traffic - Use cryptographic hash functions like SHA-256 to ensure data integrity.

With the evolution of the cloud, new opportunities have risen to make it easier to find and encrypt data both at rest and in motion. Cloud vendors and other 3rd party tools offer a range of data protection services. Some examples of data protection tools include: Data Protection Solutions - eg. Microsoft's Purview Key Stores SASE: Secure Access Service Edge Database Encryption CSPM: Cloud Security Posture Management Although it doesn’t provide encryption, CSPM helps identify and advise on poor encryption practices such as use of deprecated authentication protocols.

The industry best practice is to encrypt the data at rest, in use and in motion. When encrypting data at rest, use Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), approved cryptography algorithms, and key lengths. Ensure that access control policies for your key management is based on the principle of least privilege and segregation of duties. When encrypting data in transit, the recommended practice is to use secure protocols, such as HTTPS, SSL, TLS, or SSH. Encryption in transit protects the data if communications are intercepted while data moves between your site and the cloud provider or between two services.

Utilize encryption management tools and security analytics platforms to monitor encryption key usage, detect suspicious activities, and analyze encryption-related logs for anomalies.

Data at Rest Data at rest is any data stored on media such as system hard drives, external USB drives, storage area networks (SANs), and backup tapes. The Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is one of the most popular symmetric encryption algorithms (key sizes of 128 bits, 192 bits, and 256 bits) used for the data at rest. Data in Transit Data in transit (sometimes called data in motion) is any data transmitted over a network. This includes data transmitted over an internal network using wired or wireless methods and data transmitted over public networks such as the internet. In this mode traffic over the internet should use HTTPS with underlying SSL/TLS encryption is mandatory. For remote access, IPSEC VPN should be used.

Classifying data into different sensitivity levels enables you to apply appropriate encryption methods and access controls based on the level of risk associated with each data category.

The data at rest, especially the sensitive data such as PII, PHI, Financial records, Intellectual property, is a lucrative target for the bad actors. Some of the common practices for protecting stored data include: Data categorization and classification - Its a proactive measure to identify and organize data according to sensitivity. Data encryption — Applying Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and Full Disk Encryption (FDE) and encryption key management ensures that data cannot be viewed by unauthorized access. Data tokenization — this approach replaces sensitive data with place-holding tokens and hence protection if data is stolen or intercepted. Data Access Rights - Applying multi-layer access controls provides layered protection.

Full disk encryption is a widely adopted best practice that encrypts a device's or drive's entire content and can be implemented at the hardware or software level. With FDE, a password, PIN, or biometric authentication is required to unlock the device or drive, ensuring that only authorized users can access the data. Another best practice for encrypting data at rest is file-level encryption, which offers more granular control over which data is encrypted and who can access it.

When encrypting data in transit, the recommended practice is to use secure protocols, such as HTTPS, SSL, TLS, or SSH. The TLS protocol is the successor to the legacy SSL. The TLS protocol implements AES 128 or 254-Bit encryption. Encryption in transit protects the data if communications are intercepted while data moves between your site and the cloud provider or between two services. Data in transit protection should be achieved through a combination of: 1.) Encryption and Tokenization – removes the possibility to read or modify data. 2.) Perimeter and Network Controls – removes the possibility and the ability to intercept data. 3.) Access Controls and Authentication – prevents unauthorized access.

Provide regular security awareness training to employees and stakeholders to educate them about the importance of encryption and secure data transmission practices.

It's crucial to implement strong encryption strategies to protect sensitive data in transit. Secure protocols like HTTPS, SSL, TLS, and SSH are essential for creating a secure channel between parties and ensuring data is encrypted and authenticated. Virtual private networks (VPNs) are also an effective tool to secure data in transit by creating a secure tunnel between devices or networks over the internet. By using these best practices, organizations can protect their data from potential threats and maintain their information assets' confidentiality, integrity, and availability.

Encryption is used to protect data from being stolen, changed, or compromised . But it has its uniques set of challenges which include: 1.) Key Management, especially related to frequent changes and updates to encryption standards 2.) Performance Overhead - The amount of data encrypted may cause a slowdown for systems 3.) Encryption keys can be vulnerable to cyber attacks, such as keyloggers, malware, and phishing scams 4.) Querying Encrypted Data which might involve decrypting data and thus chance of exposing data 5.) Encryption doesn’t work against the Insider Threat and might give a false sense of security 6.) Last but not the least, Quantum computing and other modern computing algorithms pose big threat to current encryption protocols.

It's essential to recognize that encryption also poses its own set of challenges and risks. From performance and compatibility issues to compliance problems and human error, there are several factors that IT security operations must consider when implementing encryption solutions. Organizations should take a comprehensive approach to encryption to overcome these challenges and mitigate associated risks. This includes selecting appropriate encryption methods and algorithms that balance security with performance, implementing encryption policies and standards that align with regulatory requirements and industry best practices, managing encryption keys securely, and educating users on the importance of encryption.

Encryption does not operate in a vacuum. Most attacks against encryption today are indirect. "Side-channel attacks" do not aim to directly "crack" the encryption, but to indirectly recover encryption keys from information leaks in the encrypting/decrypting system. These can be key-dependent variations in processing timing for different steps in the encryption process, variations in power drawn by the CPU performing encryption, or electromagnetic signals leaking from the hardware. Simply getting at the data or keys before encryption or after decryption via malware placed on either the sender's or recipient's systems bypasses the need to attack encryption altogether. It is important to protect systems performing encryption and decryption.

Another important topic to consider is that, since encryption is a reversible technique, encrypted data still must be protected and secured similarly to non-encrypted data.