Cloud Computing: How fully homomorphic encryption can prevent infiltration of secure networks

Grazed from CIO. Author: Kurt Rohloff.

At the end of September, President Obama announced that China and the United States had reached an agreement: neither country would support or participate in cyberespionage that results in the loss of intellectual property. While the effectiveness of the agreement between the U.S. and China is still in question (James Clapper, director of national intelligence, said he is “inherently skeptical”), it’s essential that the cybersecurity community continues to secure computer networks from the tactics that were successfully used by nation-state actors, such as spear phishing.

Research and advancements within technology are showing that fully homomorphic encryption can substantially limit the infiltration of secure networks, combat the offensive techniques used by nation-states and usher in a new generation of cloud computing technologies…

The style of cyberattacks

Numerous nation-state groups are leading cyberattacks linked to various types of espionage, including economic espionage. These activities are discussed in depth in a report from Mandiant, which calls these groups and their attacks advanced persistent threats (APTs). The organizations leading these attacks are made up of real individuals rather than automated programs, and they employ relatively simple tactics to infiltrate networks and exfiltrate terabytes of sensitive data. For example, the Mandiant report describes a group “stealing 6.5 terabytes of compressed data from a single organization over a ten-month time period.”…

Read more from the source @ http://www.cio.com/article/3002582/encryption/how-fully-homomorphic-encryption-can-prevent-infiltration-of-secure-networks.html