Venafi welcomes news that hardware manufactures are embracing the concept of chip-level encryption, and the attendant reduction in transaction processing loads this brings. Where previous attempts to integrate encryption at the chip level have resulted in processor overheads, these latest moves are based on the concept of supporting hardware-based cryptographic acceleration for increased security without impacts to availability or business continuity.

 Calum Macleod, EMEA director with the Enterprise Key and Certificate Management (EKCM) solutions specialist said: “This represents several steps in the right direction for encryption, as the process centres on the use of dedicated instruction sets and/or on-processor computing engines. As such the overall effect on the host processor will be negligible.”

 “Having said this, our observations are that - the larger the company and the more ubiquitous encryption becomes for both in-motion and static data - the more difficult it becomes to manage the growing volumes of encryption keys. In an enterprise situation, key management processes start to assume major significant and operational focus in IT departments that are almost certainly already running at full stretch,” he added.

 The Venafi EMEA director went on to say that - as the move to processor-based encryption gathers pace - it is likely that a great many more organisations will embrace the security and compliance enhancements that encryption brings to their technology platform.

 The advantages of encryption at the processor level is not, he adds, to be underestimated, as it helps in the management of reputational risks, maximises system availability and can also assist in the event of a CA compromise. At the same time, he says, the effective management of encryption keys is also likely to become a headache for those IT departments that have not implemented sound key management processes and automation.

 In addition, he explained, with automation comes the ability to enforce security policies, ensure proper segregation of duties, secure critical information, and assist in the continual process of achieving regulatory compliance.

 “With Basel III, the Companies Act and PCI DSS – version 3 of which is just around the corner – automating the discovery, monitoring, security and management of these mission-critical security instruments like keys and certificates from the data centre to the cloud and beyond has never been more attractive,” he said. “All we recommend is that IT security managers should not lose sight of the requirement for an effective encryption asset system,” he added.

 For more on Venafi: http://www.venafi.com

 For more on the move to on-chip cryptography: http://bit.ly/Spd0x3

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