Top 10 Encryption methods for Cloud data tansfer
Cloud storage is the most recent means for individuals and new small and large enterprises to securely store and manage their data. In 2024, online businesses prefer cloud storage over purchasing proprietary hardware or databases. However, this change comes with a responsibility to protect your data.
Encryption is the process of changing readable data into an indecipherable format. Encrypting your data prevents unauthorized access and reading. But how do we truly do it?
Below, we’ll look at the top ten encryption methods for cloud storage and real-world applications, as well as why they’re so important for data security.
Why encryption is important in cloud storage
When data is kept in the cloud, it is shared at various points across the network by users and cloud storage providers. You can’t simply communicate data without following any security processes. Encryption protects the privacy of this data by changing its format so that only the intended receiver may view it.
Many industries, particularly banking and finance, have serious data protection standards (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA). In the event of a data breach, they will suffer severe financial losses. Thus, their data should be encrypted both at rest and in transit.
How does encryption works
Many cloud storage companies provide automatic encryption solutions, minimizing the need of performing it manually. To make the process easier to understand, we divide it into three steps. The first step is to convert your text or data, then encrypt it, and finally decode it. The first way is to transform plain text to ciphertext using cryptographic techniques. Then encryption and decryption proceed.
There could be several ways to do it. Like Most cloud storage providers use symmetric encryption, which involves using the same key for both encryption and decryption, resulting in speedy performance. To give you an idea, here are a few encryption methods used by cloud storage services to transport files/data. Keep in mind that these methods are not limited to cloud storage only.
Encryption Methods for Cloud Storage
Cloud storage providers employ various encryption methods to protect data from unauthorized access.
1. Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
AES is a popular symmetric encryption technology that has become the global standard for protecting sensitive data.Data is encrypted in fixed-sized blocks. Its fundamental characteristic is that a single key is utilized for both encryption and decryption. It can handle three key lengths: 128 bits, 192 bits, and 256 bits. Governments, military organizations, and cloud service providers use it to protect their data. AES is typically regarded as highly secure, with features that guard against all known practical threats, including brute force and cryptanalysis.AES-256 is considered one of the most strong encryption algorithms available today, and it is commonly used by cloud storage customers.
2. RSA Encryption
Unlike symmetric encryption methods like AES, which use only one key, RSA employs two keys, one public and one private. RSA keys are often much bigger than those used in symmetric encryption. Common key sizes range from 2048 to 4096 bits. Both keys are linked to one another. This allows for secure communication without having the sender and receiver to share a secret key in advance. The mathematical difficulty of factoring large prime numbers provides the basis for RSA’s security. RSA is widely utilized for digital signature creation, as well as key exchange and authentication in VPNs.
3. Transport Layer Security (TLS)
TLS encrypts sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers, and personal data to prevent unauthorized parties from intercepting it.As the name says, it ensures transport phase security. TLS is most often used for HTTPS, secure email protocols, and secure voice-over-IP. It employs encryption to ensure that data sent between two clients and a server is unreadable by unauthorized parties. TLS is a widely used protocol for online transactions such as e-commerce and banking. It authenticates links with digital certificates, letting users to confirm the legitimacy of the links with which they interact.
4. Blowfish
It is a popular encryption algorithm created by Bruce Schneier in 1993.It is a symmetric cipher, similar to AES, which means that the same key is used for encryption and decryption.It includes data blocks with a fixed size of 64 bits. Blowfish is considered secure, however its 64-bit block size renders it vulnerable to specific attacks, whereas AES is more secure. Its cryptographic structure was designed for use in password hashing and virtual private networks.Blowfish was a popular encryption technique in the 1990s and early 2000s, although it has been largely substituted by AES in recent applications. The nicest feature is the adjustable key size, which runs from 32 to 448 bits.
5. Twofish
To meet moodren requirements, Twofish encrypts data in fixed-size 128-bit blocks. Twofish was created as the successor to Blowfish.It remains a popular encryption technology because of its excellent security and versatility. It was designed to be more secure than Blowfish, with a block size of 128 bits and support for greater key sizes (up to 256 bits).Keys in twofish are a little more complicated because they involve generating multiple subkeys from the main encryption key.Twofish is built on the Feistel network, which divides input data into equal blocks and passes each block through numerous encryption rounds.
6. Triple DES (3DES)
Triple DES, often known as 3DES, tries to improve security by using the DES cipher three times on each data block. It offers a variety of key size options based on the mode of operation, ranging from 128 bits to 192 bits. It is thought to be more secure than original DES due to its repeated encryption and larger effective key size. It was frequently employed by government agencies and defense groups to protect confidential and sensitive information, but it has since been replaced by encryption methods like AES.
7. Asynchronous Encryption with Digital Signatures
The essential idea behind asymmetric encryption is that data encrypted using a public key can only be decrypted using the associated private key, and vice versa. In contrast, a digital signature is a cryptographic technique that ensures the validity and integrity of a communication, file, or digital document. Both collaborated to create a more secure encryption technique. Asymmetric encryption and digital signatures are the foundations of current secure communication and authentication systems.
8. Elliptic curve cryptography
It is a new cryptographic technique that provides great security with small key sizes. To understand this encryption, you must be familiar with elliptic curve mathematics. An elliptic curve is a collection of points that meet a specific mathematical equation.ECC’s ability to provide strong security with minimum computing overhead makes it an ideal solution for resource-constrained applications such as mobile devices, embedded systems, and IoT devices.
ECC provides the same level of security as older approaches like RSA, but with much smaller key sizes. For example, a 256-bit ECC key is just as secure as a 3072-bit RSA key. Smaller key sizes enable faster encryption, decryption, and key transfer operations, making ECC appropriate for resource-constrained situations.
9. Homomorphic encryption
Homomorphic encryption allows users to compute on encrypted data in the cloud without revealing it to the cloud service provider. It also enables computations to be performed directly on encrypted data, without first decrypting it. Ciphertexts can be added and multiplied while remaining encrypted. When decrypted, this output yields the same results as if the processes were applied to the original plaintext. Homomorphic encryption is less suitable for real-time or large-scale applications due to its high computational power and memory requirements.
10. Secure Hash Algorithm
The Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA) transforms any size of input information into a fixed-length, distinct hash value, ensuring the information’s reliability, safety, and authenticity. It takes an input (or message) and outputs a consistent set of bytes. SHA is widely used to generate a unique hash of a message, which may then be signed using a private key. SHA is an important component of security systems, and continuing research aims to keep it effective against evolving threats.
