The average cost of a data breach is USD 4.35 million, and 83% of organizations have had more than one breach (of which 45% occur in the cloud). With these increases in the frequency and costs data breaches, an enterprise’s data protection and privacy in the cloud is more important than ever.

The data protection needs of organizations are driven by concerns about protecting sensitive information and intellectual property and meeting compliance and regulatory requirements. 

Encryption is named the largest cost mitigation, and as such, mandated by many regulators. The effectiveness of encryption depends on the assurance of the keys.

When hosting data with cloud providers, enterprises want to maintain complete authority over their valuable data and associated workloads. This includes no access to sensitive data from the outside, specifically including their cloud providers.

How can you properly protect sensitive data in the public cloud?

Deploying extensive encryption is considered the most substantial cost-mitigating factor in the event of a data breach. In fact, the average total reduction in the cost of a breach due to extensive encryption was USD 252,000 in 2022.

Yet, data protection through encryption is only as strong as your ability to protect the keys used to encrypt the data. Clients can either rely on trusting the cloud provider with operational assurance or apply zero-trust principles with technical assurance. 

Technical and operational assurance: Technical assurance delivers the highest level of privacy and protection in the cloud-native space

Operational assurance means your cloud provider will not access your data based on trust, visibility and control. Technical assurance, on the other hand, makes certain your cloud provider cannot access your data based on technical proof, data encryption and runtime isolation (and can protect your keys from bad actors).

So, who do you have to protect against? You want to have the highest technical assurance that primarily attackers—but also cloud administrators, vendors, software providers and site reliability engineers (SREs)—can’t access the keys you are using to protect encrypted data from bad actors. IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Services allows you to leverage technical assurance for your keys in a cloud-native way to keep your keys secure without the need of on-premises deployments or HSMs. 

It enables enterprises to have complete authority over their sensitive data, workloads and encryption keys. It’s called Keep Your Own Key (KYOK), and not even IBM Cloud administrators have access.

Enhance the level of control over data in the cloud: Your data security journey begins with your keys in your hands

While technical assurance (as provided with KYOK for integrated IBM Cloud Services) is not available cross-provider, there is another way to gain control over keys, enhance data privacy for sensitive data, reduce risk in the cloud and establish a high-security ecosystem across hyperscalers with customer-managed keys. This is also known as Bring Your Own Key (BYOK).

Securing sensitive data in Microsoft Azure takes a significant stride forward with the adoption of the BYOK or customer-managed key option. This approach empowers businesses to maintain an elevated level of control over their data encryption keys, bolstering the protection of their invaluable information. BYOK ensures that organizations can dictate who accesses their data, mitigating the risk of unauthorized breaches. By retaining ownership of encryption keys, enterprises align with stringent compliance regulations and bolster their security posture. The BYOK option extends beyond conventional security measures, offering end-to-end encryption that safeguards data at rest and in transit. 

Implementing BYOK comes with its share of challenges that organizations need to navigate. One notable hurdle is the conflict between on-premises deployments and a cloud-native, cloud-first strategy. BYOK can be at odds with the seamless and flexible nature of cloud environments, potentially impeding the scalability and cost-effectiveness that businesses seek. The process of BYOK itself can be complex and resource-intensive, often requiring considerable effort and investment. Additionally, while cloud solutions aim to enhance security, the division of trust between two vendors might not necessarily translate to a substantial reduction in risk. As businesses look to achieve zero trust while becoming and staying cloud-native, they must seek innovative approaches that balance the benefits of BYOK with the need for simplicity, scalability and a holistic security posture. Can we forge a path towards zero trust without compromising the agility and efficiency that cloud-native strategies offer?

Hyper Protect Crypto Services with Unified Key Orchestration enables you to enhance total data privacy and maintain control over keys in a cloud-native way

IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Services allows you to Keep Your Own Key (KYOK) for data encryption,gain complete authority over your data and leverage the highest level of commercial technical assurance built on secured-enclave technology.  

Beyond the benefits on a day-to-day base, business continuity is also taken care of, allowing you to work efficiently and consistently across cloud environments or multiple projects in a cloud environment. Hyper Protect Crypto Services with Unified Key Orchestration acts as a highly secured repository for the keys you are distributing for use in other clouds, providing fast recovery in the event of key-loss or a disaster of your chosen cloud region.

IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Cloud Services enables end-to-end protection for business processes in the cloud with the following features:

• KYOK, single-tenant key management service with key-vaulting provided by dedicated, customer-controlled HSMs and that supports industry standards, such as PKCS #11, KMIP for VMware & GREP11.
• Built on the highest level of security, with FIPS 140-2 Level 4-certified hardware.
• A single, as-a-Service solution with integrated key backups and built-in high availability and disaster recovery by design for a worry-free approach to multicloud key management.
• A single point of control over all your keys in the multicloud to create keys securely and bring them into Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud Platform.

See how easy it is to maintain control over your key in Azure

Take the crucial step towards fortifying your Azure environment’s security today by leveraging the power of IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Services. Safeguarding sensitive data in the cloud has never been more critical, and with Hyper Protect Crypto Services, you can ensure robust protection while maintaining compliance. Don’t wait to enhance your security posture and embrace a zero-trust framework.

The Hyper Protect Crypto Services with Unified Key Orchestration allows you to do the following:

• Keep control over your keys by leveraging the highest level of security and exclusive key control.
• Stay worry-free with an all-in aaS key management solution.
• Securely distribute and manage keys from one single point of control within the hybrid multicloud.
• Utilize central backup to redistribute and rotate keys to quickly recover from loss and minimize security threats.
• Reduce complexity with unified and automated key orchestration and lifecycle management across environments.
• Minimize errors and maximize operational efficiency for your key management procedures by leveraging a design-award-winning user experience.

Watch this video to learn how to protect data with customer-controlled keys and manage compliance in a Microsoft Office 365 environment using IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Services with Unified Key Orchestration.

Your data’s security journey begins with having control over the keys you use to encrypt your most important asset—your data. 

Start now to stay steps ahead of potential threats and use the promo code HPCRYPTO30 to get two crypto units for free

We are offering new clients a USD 3,120 credit to be applied toward IBM Cloud Hyper Protect Crypto Services. When you create an instance of Hyper Protect Crypto Services, you specify the number of crypto units to provision. The default option is two crypto units for high availability and monthly pricing is per crypto unit.

Use the promo code HPCRYPTO30 when you provision the service to get the first 30 days free for two crypto units. See this guide on how to apply promo codes to your IBM account. The offer can be redeemed in a few simple steps:

• Step 1: Login or create your IBM Cloud Account. (Note: Be sure your account is upgraded to either a pay-as-you-go or subscription account before proceeding).
• Step 2: Within your account, click Manage and select Billing & Usage from the drop-down list.
• Step 3: Select Promotions, enter the code HPCRYPTO30, then click Apply.
• Step 4: Navigate back to the IBM Cloud console and start provisioning your new Hyper Protect Crypto Services instance.

This offer is subject to availability, each promo code can be used once per customer, and cannot be combined with other offers.