Payment Card Industry (PCI) Compliant Data Encryption

INTRODUCTION

Experts in data protection urge organizations to use the following method for managing data security risk and for complying with regulatory requirements.

Step 1: Eliminate as much collection and storage of sensitive data as possible – if you don’t really need it, get rid of it (or never
collect it in the first place)

Step 2: Encrypt, hash or mask the remaining sensitive data at rest and in transit

As organizations seek to protect sensitive data from malicious or accidental exposure, encryption has become an increasingly important weapon in the security arsenal for data at rest in databases, files and applications, and for data in transit.

Encryption is a perfect companion to strong perimeter and firewall protection – even if there is a breach, as long as the sensitive data is encrypted no matter where it rests, it will be useless to them. Encryption is also one of the most important ways to protect against internal threats, which some estimates put as high as 73% of all breaches – your firewall and perimeter security can’t protect you from corrupt employees, but encryption can.

Encryption is not new – enterprises have been utilizing cryptography for computer security purposes for several decades now. When networks were private, data was rarely encrypted. Its primary purpose was to protect certain secret fields such as passwords from someone accessing them in an unauthorized manner. The associated encryption keys were rarely changed.

Today, we rely on public networks to access and transmit information. Computing has burst out of the glass house and information travels on laptops, PDAs and thumb drives. Wireless connectivity has become Wild West of opportunity for eavesdroppers and thieves.

The amount of information that must be encrypted and decrypted at rest and in transit is increasing exponentially, leading to a corresponding encryption key management problem.

The encryption key management lifecycle includes many processes:
Generate, Store Backup, Distribute, Rotate, Expire, Archive, Retrieve, Destroy

These processes must be performed in a manner that is secure, tamper-proof, available and auditable. They must allow for an infinite variety of lifecycle timelines – from seconds to years. And they must support regulation-specific key handling such as that mandated by the Payment Card Industry’s Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

Keys proliferate exponentially as you manage the data encryption lifecycle. If not managed properly, a new problem emerges – how to control and protect access to the keys to (1) assure that they don’t get into the wrong hands and (2) assure they are available to when needed to unlock data today and in the future.

There is mounting demand for effective, practical, automated, riskmitigating ways to manage keys throughout their lifecycle so that the good guys are facilitated and the bad guys are thwarted.

Atlas's secure data at rest solution is a complete encryption and key management solution that offers the following features:

• Centralized key management
• Distributed key architecture = superior reliability and performance
• Complete logging and audit trail data
• Encrypts database fields, files and application data
• Encrypts data on z/OS, OS/400, Windows, UNIX, AIX, Solaris, Linux
• Infinitely scalable

Atlas's secure data at rest solution embodies a variety of best practices that today protect data for some of the world’s most prominent brands.

So whatever sector you operate in, we’ve got something for you.
Just give us a call on 01942 252000.