Encryption: Do It Today or Pay Tomorrow
On the surface, encryption has always seemed a no-brainer. Why expose confidential information to prying eyes when you could protect it by scrambling it? But even though encryption technologies have been widely available for more than 10 years, they have been slow to catch on.
Things are starting to change, however. A succession of high-profile, high-pain mishaps — including stolen laptops, lost tapes and litigation associated with data breaches — has seized the attention of management, and not just IT management. Meanwhile, hardware and software vendors have whittled away at the traditional objections to encryption, including performance penalties and the difficulty of managing keys. Now, companies that have a great deal of sensitive data are beginning to move beyond the tactical point products they might have used years ago to high-level encryption “platforms” that provide services to applications, databases and networks companywide.