Tag: encryption

“Mr. Coca Cola” -or- Hackers never sleep: Protecting Data at rest

Data at rest is stored data that isn’t currently being used or transferred.

For instance, at the Coca Cola factory: when Mr. Coca Cola sends all the “cola artists” (I’m assuming he calls them that) home for the evening, the secret recipe won’t be needed for at least another 8 hours.

Mr. Ebenezer Coca-Cola (artist’s rendering)

So of course, he just takes the piece of paper with the secret recipe on it, and sticks it to his personal office vending machine with a refrigerator magnet, and heads home to watch “Fired Up,” right? Wrong!

First, “Fired Up” went off the air years ago, lasted only two seasons, only aired briefly in syndication and is not available on Netflix. Not even star Sharon Lawrence has any copies. It’s gone gone.

Second, Mr. Coca Cola needs the secret recipe to remain a secret. During the day, he can personally add the ingredients for Coca Cola to the giant mixing vat located in earthquake-proof bedrock five miles below the factory floor. But at night. At night he needs to store the recipe safely, while it is Data at rest. That’s because a) it’s always night somewhere b) hackers never sleep.

So what he really does is quite simple: he encrypts the file that contains the recipe. Only Mr. Coca Cola and the President of the United States know the password to decrypt it. The recipe is safe until tomorrow morning.

The end.

Next time…protecting Data in motion.

What is your favorite Sci-Fi series?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Encryption: “♫ Doo-dot, deeyowwww, da-doo-daaa! ♫”

That’s what James Bond sings to himself as he walks down the street, or skis down a bobsled run as he’s being chased by henchman on motorcycles with ridiculous spikes on their tires. Unless he’s listening to Astley.

Singing to himself in the face of mortal danger: that kind of confidence comes from years of training and discipline, and the knowledge that all of his secret spy files are safely encrypted.

Now you can enjoy that same level of confidence when you need to keep information safe. It’s called encryption, and it’s pretty simple to use, with a free program called 7-zip. If you want to learn how to do it, watch the slideshow below. You can come back here any time to get a refresher:

Which of these actors only played James Bond in one film?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

Cranium Control Panel: Protecting “Data in Use”

Sensitive data is arguably at its most vulnerable to hackers and looky-loos  when it is in use by someone who needs to work with it to do their job.

data-in-use
“Aha! I see the problem. You got some water weed in your floatatronic propeller extrapolator!”

To work with encrypted data, you need to take it out of it’s encrypted “vault.” While it’s in that decrypted state, it is easier to steal or alter.

Here are a few simple things you can do when you’re working with sensitive information to help keep the data secure:

  1. If possible, save a version of the data that doesn’t contain the sensitive information, and work with that. If you only need to count the number of records, or do some other work with the data that doesn’t involve the sensitive portion of the info, you can, say, remove the sensitive columns of a spreadsheet and do a “save as…” of the file.
  2. Re-encrypt the data as soon as you’re done working with it. Don’t leave sensitive in an unencrypted form when you’re not using it.
  3. Lock your computer when you’re away from it.
    1. Mac: ctrl-shift-eject
    2. PC: lock

 

What is a way to protect data in use?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

 

Next time: Protecting Data at rest.

data-at-rest-ha-ha