How Fortanix Customers Took Control of Their Cryptographic Security Posture

Taking Charge: Why Organizations Need to Own Their Data Security and Encryption

In today's digital landscape, data is the lifeblood of any organization. But with great power comes great responsibility, and the responsibility of securing that data falls squarely on businesses themselves. They are driven by data privacy and security regulations, but upholding the highest security standards is also critical in gaining—and keeping—trust of their customers.

Encryption is the last line of defense and provides security and control, wherever the data resides. This is essential in a time where data moves fluidly between on-premises data centers, different cloud platforms, even AI-enabled applications. Setting and maintaining highly secure cryptographic operations across hybrid multicloud environments imposes new challenges.

Regulations are becoming increasingly stringent, demanding organizations to demonstrate compliance. To achieve this, a complete understanding and centralized control over encryption strategies are crucial.

The Challenge: Silos of Secrecy

Unfortunately, many organizations find themselves facing a fragmented approach to data security. On-premise data centers and the ever-expanding world of cloud platforms create data and encryption tool silos. This imposes a lack of centralized visibility, which makes it nearly impossible to have a holistic view of your data's security posture.

Imagine a sprawling city with information scattered across different neighborhoods, each with its own security system and guards who don't communicate with each other. How can you be confident that the entire city is safe?

The same principle applies to data security. Without a central hub for governing encryption keys and understanding how they're used across your infrastructure, you inevitably end up with critical blind spots in your cryptographic security posture.

The Consequences of Chaos

The ramifications of this data and crypto solution sprawl are significant. Security and compliance teams are left scrambling to keep up. At best, they must navigate multiple platforms and interfaces and demonstrate compliance with regulations becomes a herculean task.

But the risks extend beyond regulatory fines. Data breaches can be catastrophic, damaging your reputation and costing millions. And if you can't prove you were proactively safeguarding sensitive information, the fallout can be even worse.

Fortanix Customer Use Cases

So how do we break free from these data silos and achieve true control over our encryption strategies? The answer lies in a centralized approach. Fortanix helps organizations worldwide with the following use cases:

Data Security Hardening

Organizations that want to ensure their cryptographic security posture is at the highest levels must know if their security policies are implemented correctly and uniformly. When policies are governed by dispersed solutions, different teams must deal with the intricacies of different solutions from different vendors and this complexity creates gaps in security implementations.

The efficacy of encryption is tightly correlated to algorithm strength, and the complexity of key management; keys must be frequently updated and rotated. Keys should also only be used for a single service. Sharing keys between services increases the blast radius when a key is compromised, but also complicates troubleshooting, for example.

Storing keys on the same platform where the data is used, is akin to hiding the keys to a safe under the safe. This squarely goes against security best practices and regulations (more on this below).

Fortanix helps its customers discover keys and related data services across multiple clouds, and reveals the details of the cryptographic security posture. It pinpoints the highest security risks so teams can prioritize remediation efforts to make great strides in improving the security posture.

A centralized key management solution lets organizations take custody of their master keys instead of storing them on a cloud platform. It lets security teams govern consistent policies across hybrid multicloud environments. And the hyper secure Confidential Computing technology ensures that not even Fortanix can access an organization’s keys to their kingdom (the data).

Streamlining Data Privacy and Security Compliance

Compliance teams need to be able to assess immediately where keys are, how they are used, and whether they align with their organization's required policies.

Getting this information is a significant challenge, as encryption keys are sprawled across HSMs in classical data centers or Key Management Systems (KMS) provided by different cloud platforms. The self-service and dynamic nature of the cloud causes the cryptographic security posture to fluctuate unpredictably.

Data privacy regulations such as the GDPR and the Schrems-II ruling dictate that data owners must ensure the encryption keys remain in their control and can’t be stored on the same platform and region as the encrypted data. This is not trivial to implement, and as a result, organizations can’t expand their services to the European Union.

Fortanix provides centralized KMS with integrated HSM services, so organizations get a unified policy governance. Services like AWS XKS and Google EKM let Fortanix customers keep custody of their master encryption keys and ensure they are kept within the European Economical Area (EEA) so they can adhere to GDPR and Schrems-II.

Fortanix Key Insight offers deep visibility into where your keys reside, how they are used, and the level of protection they offer to your data. Security teams get immediate insight in the riskiest policy gaps and can swiftly implement remediation steps with the Data Security Manager KMS solution. At any point in time, security and compliance teams can report on the state of an organization’s cryptographic security posture.

PQC Readiness

Advances in Quantum Computers will render most widely used public key cryptographic algorithms obsolete. Organizations need migration strategies for new quantum-proof algorithms and implement these with minimal disruption to their operations.

However, Gartner states that 90% of their clients don’t know exactly where they apply crypto, so an accurate inventory is essential.

Fortanix provides solutions for all critical steps in your post-quantum readiness journey. The first phase is to discover your cryptographic security posture. Fortanix Key Insight discovers all cloud encryption keys and data services to assess and track your cryptographic security posture.

It reveals the location and usage of encryption keys by data services across multicloud environments, allowing you to identify and prioritize where and when to apply post-quantum cryptography.

Cryptographic agility is essential for transitioning to a strong and resilient data security posture. Fortanix helps organizations simplify and regain control of their cryptographic operations across multiple clouds, classical datacenters, and individual regions. Organizations can then transition smoothly to new cryptographic standards with efficient resource use.

Conclusion

Imagine if your organization had a central command center to coordinate all cryptographic workflows. This centralized approach allows for swift response to threats and ensures no corner of the city is left vulnerable.

By taking ownership of your data security and encryption, you can:

• Enhance security: Plug the holes created by data silos and fortify your defenses.
• Simplify compliance: Demonstrate adherence to regulations with ease.
• Empower your teams: Security and compliance professionals can focus on strategic initiatives instead of chasing down information.

Data security is not a game of chance. By taking control of your encryption strategy and centralizing your efforts, you can ensure your information remains safe and secure, building trust and fostering a thriving digital future for your organization.