UNLOQ Has Your Back — Part Three
Data At Rest
Hi guys! It’s time for our third and last post from the “UNLOQ Has Your Back” series. Today we’re going to talk about the third way in which UNLOQ protects your users against cyber-attacks and data breaches. After our first and second article on UNLOQ’s protection solutions (if you haven’t read them yet, now it’s your chance), it’s time to close the circle and give you some more details on our third protection area: Data At rest.
What is data at rest?
When you hear about Data at rest, do you think about a floppy disk sitting at the beach, enjoying a cocktail? If yes, you’re really close to the real meaning of data at rest (the sitting part at least).
Data at rest is data that is just sitting there, whether in local storage, cloud storage, or even in a third-party storage application, and is not being transferred or edited at that moment. Wherever this data may be stored, it is crucial that it is encrypted, so that it is protected against the ever-present threat that hackers pose to it. Business owners and government agencies are getting more and more concerned about cyber-security and data protection, and here is where data encryption comes in the picture.
What is data encryption?
In order for data to be protected against hackers, it can be encrypted. The encryption process turns data (information, images or programs) into a cipher. This is made through applying to the data a set of algorithms that transfer it through streams of random alphanumerical characters. Encryption keys are capable of encrypting, decrypting or performing both these functions, depending on the encryption solution used.
Part Three: Data At Rest
How does UNLOQ protect data at rest?
We know how important it is to protect your users’ data, especially if it is more sensitive, like financial information, addresses, payment data or even social security numbers, and this is why UNLOQ provides your business with users’ personal encryption keys. These encryption keys are can only be accesses by your users and after that passed to you through our system.
How does it work?
Step 1: Add the encryption keys to your UNLOQ implementation
In the configuration process of your UNLOQ account, you must turn on the encryption key option in our Security section. After that, you must implement the API calls as shown in our documentation.
Step 2: Send a push notification to your user’s phone
A call will be made to our API to trigger a push notification on your user’s phone every-time he will want to login or access sensitive data.
Step 3: Receive your user’s approval
After your user will receive the push notification to login, he will be able to hit the Deny or Approve button. UNLOQ will pass this message on to you, and if he approves the request, you will be able to find the user’s encrypted key in his response. This key was encrypted with your system’s key and his mobile on the first login.
Step 4: Use the key
Use this key to encrypt your user’s data and present this back to the user.
How can you welcome Data At Rest into your business?
- Download the application from App Store or Google Play
- Create an account
- Implement the API calls after reading the documentation
I hope you enjoyed our little series and learned more about how UNLOQ can protect your business and most importantly, your user’s data. See you next time in a new post on our blog! Until then, read more about us here.
