Encryption is the most popular method for protecting data across cloud services, but cloud tokenization is another alternative that’s fast gaining traction. Here, we take a look at the key differences between cloud tokenization and cloud encryption and the impact they have in operational use as CISOs and other roles deal with the impact.
Encryption has long been the first line of defense against someone accessing business, government or personal data. Across computing history and even in the era of cloud security, files have been encrypted for transport, network connections can be encrypted and digital vaults on PCs, servers and smartphones can all add layers of encryption to protect data.
However, the data is still there and if someone gets their hands on the encryption keys or has enough compute power to brute force decrypt that data, then they’ll have complete access to it. Enter tokenization, a process that replaces the original data with a meaningless token that can only be reversed by the tokenization solution.