The Importance of Data Security: Strategies for Ensuring You Never Lose Information
Data security is the process of ensuring your data stays safe and sound. The goal should be to make sure that, no matter what- you never have to worry about losing any information on file; we can do this through encryption (the encoding/decoding for confidentiality), breaches such as hacking into databases or breaking passwords offsite like with Facebook’s new two factor authentication feature which requires login after entering IMEI code from phone’s SIM card in addition get an SMS message sent using Request Code function; physical safety by protecting devices storing important info inside fireproof safes etc.).
Backups serve as a protection
However, backups are designed to be not only a procedure to help restore data which has been lost or damaged in the case of its loss/damage by either accidental deletion, hardware failure etc., but also an additional layer to have an extra copy of data just in case. It is possible you may have thought that your laptop being backed up was going to save it from a burglary- however this isn’t always the case as it can still be stolen and there would then be no way to retrieve any documents saved inside. Backups serve as a protection for when something goes wrong- either through human error or system malfunction or even for natural disasters perhaps wiping out everything in one go such as an earthquake, wildfire.
Having good backups allows you to feel more comfortable by saving some files on a separate hard drive or some online storage service, if your main laptop were to be destroyed for any reason at all then the backups would mean that all your work wouldn’t have been in vain.
In this case scenario it looks as if their backup system works well- perhaps they used external hard drives and frequently swapped them out every few months just to add more layers of protection. Perhaps they had quite a bit of data on their computer but didn’t want clutter it up with multiple copies of the same thing so decided to back everything up onto external hard drives which they can take out and put away when not needed
Data security methods are used to protect the confidentiality of data.
The various ways in which this goal may be achieved include encryption, tokenization and pseudonymizing; all three have their pros and cons depending on what you want out them for – so understanding these concepts is imperative before deciding on a strategy.
Encryption is a method that encodes a message or some other plaintext into an unintelligible form, called ciphertext. The person receiving the message can decode it by using a corresponding decryption key. The best known example of encryption is the Caesar cipher which operated on a simple concept: for each letter in …
Beyond cryptography, steganography serves to hide data within another file type such as audio, video and images. This makes it hard to detect whether there are hidden messages being sent out without decoding the files themselves. However this also has its limitations with detection due to new technologies such as big data and cloud computing opening up more options of finding these secrets that would not have been possible before. One benefit of this approach is that though it may be detected in the future, no one in the present will know of its existence.
A classic example of a commonly used algorithm for this is a masking scheme called LSB or least-significant bit which hides information by changing.
The whole concept behind cryptography and steganography at their very core is NOT to stand out, but rather blend into their surroundings. The real challenge here then becomes how small can we make something while still retaining its ability to protect itself from malicious actors? This has resulted in some really wild and intricate designs which we’ll explore later on.
