CIO OPINION
Confidential computing creates a secure enclave within the system memory underlying a public cloud platform .
David Fairman , APAC CIO and CSO , Netskope
Confidential Computing : A solid approach to protecting data in use
David Fairman , APAC CIO and CSO , Netskope , outlines why data in memory is increasingly becoming a target for attackers – and what can be done about it .
It ’ s no secret that Digital Transformation has led many companies to move sensitive information to the cloud . Organizations rely on Software-as-a- Service ( SaaS ) and solutions residing in public clouds to process almost every type of information .
Companies are also frequently transferring data outside their own organization in the process of collaborating with their partners for purposes of value creation . For example , understanding customer demographics and behavior patterns might require a business to share customer data with strategic partners . Consider a bank that partners with an airline to sell an airline-aligned credit card .
The bottom line is that , in many industry sectors , companies have found that moving crucial customer or financial data offsite – for one reason or another – is necessary to maintain a competitive edge .
However , transferring data across shared environments comes with an element of risk , as the organization can lose some control over how that data is managed and protected .
On the whole , cloud service providers and SaaS companies inherently offer capabilities to secure data when it is in storage and when it is in transit . They use solutions that encrypt all their data channels for network and Internet traffic . They also encrypt raw data , behind the scenes , when sitting in storage . This is generally a big uplift when compared to how data is secured when hosted internally .
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