Today, companies need to protect larger volumes of data than ever before. Data is streaming in from various endpoints such as Internet of things (IoT) and mobile devices. Organizations often have multiple branch offices or worksites that must send data over the network to the main office.
Cybercriminals continually adapt their attack vectors to infiltrate even the most secure organizations and processes. Utilizing man-in-the-middle attacks, hackers can tap into a network or intercept and eavesdrop on transmissions.
In this high-risk landscape, companies typically use encryption to protect mission-critical data. For example, cloud-based encryption can be used to protect data being sent to the cloud. Ponemon’s 2018 Global Encryption Trends Study found that 74% of respondents use public cloud encryption.
However, all encryption solutions are not created equally. Encrypted wavelength technology helps companies optimize their security through an end-to-end approach that eliminates the disadvantages of other types of encryption, such as additional overhead and higher latency.
Here are 3 key benefits of using encrypted waves:
1) Protecting data in transit
According to Statista, 63% of enterprises used encryption to protect their databases in 2018. However, data needs to be protected in transit as well as at rest. Data that is being transmitted is especially vulnerable to being intercepted, stolen, or tampered with.
The challenge of encrypting at a higher layer in the OSI stack is that while data is in transit, it can’t be protected from other security measures, such as firewalls, that protect the perimeter. By the time data reaches the firewall, it may already have been compromised.
Encrypted waves empower organizations to protect sensitive data, such as financial and medical information, while it’s in flight so it arrives at its destination securely and in complete and accurate form. With encrypted waves, hackers can still intercept data, but they can’t decipher the information because it has been encoded, rendering it useless to the hacker.
2) Defending against data breaches at layer 1
Before data enters the database, whether on-premises or in the cloud, it must first move through the network. Therefore, a company’s first layer of defense should exist at the network level.
Companies use fiber optic networks to meet bandwidth requirements and reduce latency for optimal performance and user satisfaction. With high-speed fiber optic networks, huge amounts of data are transmitted over fibers that are the width of a human hair. Each strand can transmit multiple streams of data over these same strands of fiber using different wavelengths. However, this ability to transmit such high levels of data makes them attractive targets for hackers.
Companies can take a proactive and preventative security stance. Encrypted waves provide security at the physical layer.
3) Securing data without degrading performance
The wrong type of encryption can increase latency and negate the benefits of using a high-speed network. Many organizations focus on encrypting data at layer 2 or higher, which can increase latency and overhead as well as require multiple encryption devices, adding undue cost. Layer 1 encryption can encrypt up to 100 gigabytes of information without interfering with transmission speeds or the ability to scale to meet increased network traffic. With layer 1 encryption, users avoid the frustration of increased latency.
Riding Encryption Waves
Companies need to achieve optimal data security without sacrificing performance. Data should move at lightning speed to provide real-time information for decision-making through advanced analytics.
The security of this data must be guaranteed to ensure decisions are made using complete and accurate data. Encrypted waves deliver peak network performance while offering AES-256 encryption, the industry standard for encryption.
FirstLight’s Encrypted Wavelength solution enables low-latency encryption to secure your in-flight data with ease and speed. Encrypted Wavelength offers high-capacity, cost-effective, and scalable wire-speed encryption for end-to-end data protection. We can help organizations in high-risk industries including health care, education, finance, utilities, and government use encryption waves to protect highly sensitive data without decreasing transmission speeds so they can make crucial decisions with confidence.
Find out more about FirstLight’s Encrypted Wavelength solution here and download our solution brief. Protect your network by partnering with FirstLight.
