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Field-Level Encryption 
Auditable, Targeted Encryption for Data at Risk

Challenges:
Breaches of data privacy -- where names, addresses, social security numbers, plus credit card, passport and phone numbers are exposed -- are increasingly prevalent and expensive. But companies and government agencies have to store, transmit and travel with files containing sensitive files.

What can be done to protect personally identifiable columns in .txt, .csv, .sam, .dat, .xml, and similar files and comply with privacy laws? It's a huge challenge when these files are in different storage locations and print-outs, and their fields constantly move in and out of databases, spreadsheets, emails, firewalls, and (missing) laptops.

Today's non-specific privacy methods -- including file, database, disk and laptop-level encryption -- restrict access to, and the use of, files when it's only the sensitive fields that need protecting! Your data privacy methods may not only be overkill, but may involve separate or slow steps, or expensive security products and appliances.


Solutions:
Maybe you thought that field encryption for files at risk wasn't an option. But now it is -- thanks to CoSort Version 9 and the 256-bit AES library shipping in its SortCL tool for Unix, Linux and Windows. And often, CoSort may be your best data security option, because:

Only sensitive fields need, and thus ought to be, encrypted. The remaining fields in the file, and all the other non-sensitive assets, can stay open for business. Encryption's incremental computing overhead is nominal; no resources are wasted protecting non-sensitive data. Field-specific encryption keys and libraries comply with your role-based access controls framework.
You can use its built-in field protection functions along with your own, simultaneously. This allows a mix of anonymization, de-identification, pseudonymization, and masking. Field security functions can run in the same job (and I/O pass) with transformation and reporting tasks. That's more efficient, and allows you to protect data at the source. Flat-file, field-level encryptions are independent of hardware or databases. On output, fields are secure until decryption.
You can also decrypt, process, and re-encrypt all in the same job script. This avoids any sensitive field exposure during what would otherwise be intermediary processing steps. The XML audit trail verifies who protected the data, when, where and how. Remember, you must be able to prove compliance. Its metadata is shared with the RowGen test data generation tool if you need to create safe test data.

Read on to learn more about CoSort's uniquely powerful field encryption functionality for data at risk:
Best Practices
Superior Algorithms
Simultaneous Transforms and Reports
See the next steps above to get started with a free 30-day trial, or call us at 1-800-333-SORT if you have any questions.


See also:
FAQ > Data Privacy
Solutions > Field Protection
Solutions > Data Governance > Privacy Protection
Solutions > Data Governance > Verifying Compliance
Solutions > Safe Test Data
Products > CoSort > SortCL
Customers > Industry Roles > Programmer / ISV
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» Resources


Click on the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse logo above to review the latest breaches of privacy. Notice that names, addresses, telephone and social security numbers -- all data fields CoSort's SortCL tool routinely manipulates -- can now simultaneously be protected in any way you see fit.

Would you like to see an example of field encryption of social security numbers in a file? Request the IRI white paper called "Making Data Safe for Compliance and Outsourcing."

Would you like to see the unique benefits of CoSort's approach to field encryption? Click here.

» Next Steps
1-800-333-SORT
1-321-777-8889
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