Data breaches are a very real problem, and it is a problem that will only continue to grow. The cost of these breaches can be astronomical, not just in terms of fines and lost revenue, but also in terms of reputation and customer loyalty. The solution? The best data protection solution you can get: Trident HSM with Multi-Party Computation.
Any incident counts as a data breach in which an unauthorized person or entity gains access to sensitive, protected or confidential data. More and more data breaches happen every day, as malicious hackers and their activities get more and more sophisticated. They know how to exploit vulnerabilities in software, hardware, networks and people. And they use these exploits to gain access to systems, steal data and cause damage.
The total cost of a data breach adds up from several sums. The immediate cost is usually the instant loss of customer trust and revenue, which can be significant in some cases, and the price of the post-breach activities like setting up a call center for affected customers and reimbursement for the aggrieved parties. However, there are also indirect costs that may not be immediately apparent. These include legal fees and fines from regulatory agencies like the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) or FCC (Federal Communications Commission) in the US or the EDPB (European Data Protection Board) in the EU and authorities at national levels, as well as reputational damage.
These fines can be enormous, for example Morgan Stanley recently agreed to pay a $35 million penalty after it was revealed that they had failed to properly wipe data from hard drives, which were then sold on auction sites. This is a significant sum compared to the price of the solutions and methods that could have prevented this incident, for example making sure to delete the information permanently or using HSMs to encrypt the data.
According to IBM’s recent study, the average cost of a data breach was $4.24 million in 2021 and this number is expected to grow to $4.35 million in 2022. The trends of the recent years indicate that data breaches keep getting more expensive than ever and this trend will not change anytime soon.
Furthermore, legislation is getting stricter everywhere with the recent privacy scandals and increasing digitalization. There is legislation already in place in several countries to protect people’s data and this number is only going to grow with time. An analysis by Gartner predicts that by 2023, 65% of the world population will have its personal data covered under modern privacy regulations.
Companies all over the world are under pressure to protect their data in order to avoid losses, while malicious hackers keep coming up with new, more and more sophisticated methods to breach the IT infrastructure of enterprises. This means companies must protect themselves from current and future threats and it seems impossible to keep up.
According to i4p’s experts, the solution is encryption: if your data is encrypted and the encryption keys are stored safely, the attackers cannot access sensitive information even if they manage to infiltrate your systems and steal your (encrypted) data. Those who need an extra layer of protection can use MPC (Multi-Party Computation), a special technology to enhance security provided by the Trident HSM. An organization can organize multiple Trident HSM devices into a distributed cluster and manage (generate, store, use, delete) the cryptographic keys used to encrypt the sensitive data in a truly distributed way within the cluster. This means that the key material cannot be identified independently on any of the devices, so even if one or even two of them is compromised in any way, the information obtained is worthless and the attackers cannot gain access to the sensitive data. Due to this revolutionary innovation, the Trident Multi-Party HSM offers the highest level of protection required in the business world.
Every security solution is only as secure as its keys and how they are stored. Therefore, it is worth considering an MPC solution even if it might seem high at first sight, according to your IT budget. Compared to a potential fine, the price of this solution is considerably low.
Feel free to contact us if you have any questions or need more information about this revolutionary technology and how it can help you protect your data.