Every organization is currently contending with data and security attacks from various sources by implementing various strategies to protect their systems. In the race to ensure effective and efficient security measures, encryption is one of the strategies implemented by every organization. It is necessary to protect all data exchange and communication within and outside the organization.
Unlike other security measures, encryption is one of the most robust security measures. For instance, it ensures network and communications security, password and system access security, data sharing, etc.
Due to these critical benefits, you must conduct frequent encryption assessments to ensure the current system is up to task to protect the entire organization’s security frameworks. Encryption assessment is a wider task and engagement; however, for effectiveness, it should focus on certain areas, follow various processes, and be guided by key data encryption requirements.
To achieve all these, you should hire the best experts to offer independent and third-party opinions about the encryption’s effectiveness. However, for in-house assessment, this guideline will help you achieve more.
Main Areas of Encryption Assessments
When doing the encryption assessment, you must focus on the key areas, including critical security concerns. A security assessment should be holistic, i.e., all about the entire system but with extra focus on the key areas.
First, focus on the data encryption areas, mainly the algorithms and strategies organizations use to protect the data. The main algorithm tests should include its robustness to protect the entire data. Next, it should be the latest algorithms with extra security features that can protect against all forms, including the latest form of attacks. Your team can try all the algorithms to determine how effectively they protect the data.
Security experts tend to begin with organizations’ resources to ensure effective data encryption. When approaching the entire process, experts must focus on key resources like cybersecurity, data, information, and network security infrastructure and resources. With the help of Enterprise Encryption Services, you can effectively test all these systems to ensure they are up to task and ideal for encrypted functionalities. With the expert services, you will likely test all the resources, systems, and functionalities for their effectiveness in encryption and data security.
Focus on the network and communication systems mainly responsible for data transmission and distribution. When examining or assessing the network, ensure integrated encryption features like security and algorithms are used to secure the data. Within the system, focus on the key management processes enforced by the company to boost data encryption and security.
Key Tenets for Encryption Assessment
When assessing the organizational encryption capabilities, you should be driven by various goals and objectives. Therefore, when doing so, focus on the ultimate goal of encryption and how the system meets these goals. These key goals include confidentiality, integrity, authentication, non-repudiation, etc.
Therefore, the assessment should focus on testing the system to ensure that the target recipients can easily access encrypted data; hence, there should be proper authentication strategies like a certificate of authority and authentication to support the encryption system. Next, integrity security systems like classification levels must ensure unauthorized parties do not receive the information. The authentication measures are critical to ensure only the right parties can decode the information.
Another key tenet should be tracing information sources and the recipient. There is a likelihood that some can easily deny information sharing, especially if the shared data leads to consequences like data attacks. Therefore, the goal of an assessment should be to establish key routines and measures to ensure the information sources and recipients can be traced and tracked. This can be enabled through certification and other certification measures.
Test the encryption measures and how they effectively prevent key data breaches and security concerns for an organization. Encryption is an integral part of the entire organizational security framework, hence the need to test its effectiveness in preventing data leaks, breaches, corporate espionage, and other cyber-attacks.
Procedural Encryption Assessment
The first process is defining the assessment scope, which includes the objective you aim to achieve, the processes involved, the timeline, and other significant areas. This stage should begin before you start the primary assessment, and you should define the types of data, systems, and data sources you will target. Plan about the encryption method, tools, and resources you will focus on and how to proceed.
Once you begin the assessment, begin by collecting the relevant data and doing the tests to determine the encryption effectiveness. First, begin with documentation covering the organization’s data encryption and security policies. This will involve you examining all the key policies enforced, gaps, and areas for improvement for effective encryption needs. Also, test for potential and past breaches that could have been prevented through the encryption measures.
Based on all these main focus areas, your main goal should be encryption quality and effectiveness for the organizational goals. The overall goal is to test how effective the currently adopted methods are for the organizational goals. Ensure all the processes are standards and certified procedures; however, test for additional effectiveness and robustness based on the organizational functions and activities. Therefore, create a SWOT analysis based on the current system to help the organization meet all the encryption reliability and security goals.
Finally, conclude the process with recommendations that involve your options about the current system. Based on the organizational analysis, mainly the encryption SWOT analysis, you should advise on key areas for improvement, weaknesses, strengths, and suggestions on some of the best security measures, resources, and policies needed for effectiveness.
Bottomline
A successful encryption assessment must focus on key areas, resources, encryption frameworks, and requirements to ensure success. Assess the key security features, encryption types, and other issues that will enable you to identify the key systems’ gaps, strengths, and weaknesses. Finally, the assessment should examine extra security features and how they are integrated with other security measures that are effective for the entire organization’s security measures.
