Cryptography Enhances Data Protection Find Thales and Ponemon Institute

Thales, specializing in systems and communications security, published a new survey and report, entitled “What Auditors Think about Crypto Technologies.”

According to Thales (News - Alert) sources, the report based on a research study recently conducted by the Ponemon Institute found that crypto technologies help enhance data protection and compliance activities for various industries in both private and public organizations.

The research was sponsored by Thales e-Security and the respondents included over 500 auditors with about half of them representing internal IT security audit teams and half representing independent external audit companies and consultancies.

The study found that encryption and other uses of cryptography form critical parts of a data protection strategy and compliance program. Respondents to the survey opined that an organization’s information assets cannot be fully protected, even within the corporate boundary, if cryptography is not used.

Also about eighty-one percent of the surveyed auditors said that sensitive or confidential data should be encrypted where possible. The important types of information that had to be encrypted according to them encompassed business confidential information, health information and financial or accounting information and payment transactions like that of credit cards, revealed analysts.

Franck Greverie, Thales vice president of Information Technology Security activities said in a release, “Protecting customer and business data ought to be top priority for every organization, but demonstrating compliance does not inherently translate into data security. This survey reinforces the increasingly widespread acceptance that encryption and other uses of cryptography are important for achieving compliance requirements such as PCI (News - Alert) DSS, HIPAA/HITECH and avoiding the penalties of many data breach disclosure laws.”

Greverie added that the report showcased the expectations of auditors when deploying cryptography, particularly regarding key management. Thales provides hardware security modules or HSMs, encryption appliances and key management solutions that are certified to the highest industry standards, noted Greverie.

The research supports the use of hardware security modules (HSMs) to provide the required security and to achieve compliance. It was revealed that sixty eight percent of the auditors said that HSMs are suitable for encryption and it reduces the time spent on demonstrating compliance with privacy and data protection requirements.

Thales and Imprivata, an independent single sign-on and access management provider, recently announced that Thales nShield Solo hardware security modules (HSMs) have been integrated into Imprivata OneSign.




Shamila Janakiraman is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Shamila’s articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Jennifer Russell