Data Security: Magic vs. Common Sense

I remember when I was a kid and my dad would perform magic tricks. His magic was so bad but at the time I thought it really worked and was real. You know the trick – get a coin, put it in your hand, wave your other hand over the coin, say ‘abra kadabra’ and then put the coin into the other hand when the person isn’t looking and walla the coin disappears. Then my dad would pretend to pull the coin out of my mouth, nose or ear. IT WAS MAGIC! Well, it was magic until my inquisitive 3-4 year old mind figured out what he was doing. Then it wasn’t magic at all but rather a really stupid trick.

I share this story because this is how I view the data security industry right now. Most of the solutions in the security space force you to believe in some kind of magic an ordinary person can’t understand but as we are learning the magic has a lot of fatal flaws. In fact, at the rapid pace the magic is getting hacked it’s very clear the days of magic are over. From back-doors in encryption, brute force hacking using super computing, passwords that can be socially engineered, SQL injections, packet sniffing, spear fishing, malware attacks and of course crypto-locking. There is simply no end to the flaws in the current magic we use to secure our data. Sadly the magic that has been our tried n’ true standard – Math (encryption) and Secrets (passwords) are dead!

So what is the answer? To me the answer comes with what I call the four new pillars of data security: (data conversion, data randomization, data segmentation and physical / multi-factor authentication). When you look at the solution my company has built to solve the security problem at Secured2 our very foundation rests on these pillars. For instance, we convert data into a random format, we randomize the data so it’s totally illegible to any hacker and then we have segmented the data into 10k chunks that are randomly delivered to the ‘multiple’ destinations of your choice (multiple clouds, hybrid, or local). Then to restore data so you can use the data you have to ‘physically authenticate through biometric, retinal, voice or other forms of multi-factor authentication. Our solution of simplicity works in huge contrast to the discovered magic tricks of the tired old solutions. Wouldn’t you agree it’s common sense that when data is converted, shredded, randomized and delivered into multiple locations it’s vastly more secure than the magic of today’s solutions that rely on complex math, secrets and aggregating data in single endpoints? Common sense & simplicity always wins!

Even nature has figured out a way to secure better than we do today. Nature ironically uses the same pillars of security we are using at Secured2. Just think of your brain. The data is not sitting in whole as we do today on a hard drive or in the cloud, it’s spread all around your brain in little bits. The minute you want to access ‘secured’ information you simply make a request and your brain gathers all the bits randomly spread all over your brain into the data you choose to share. Your brain then determines what level of information to share based on your level of trust with the person you are sharing information with (always physical identification). So as you look at how we as humans have already dealt with security all we are doing at Secured2 is mimicking this form of security but for a digital world.

It’s my belief that security is going through a major shift and companies like Secured2 have a first glimpse into the future of security. One thing is clear – the definition of insanity is doing the same things and expecting a different outcome. What we are using today isn’t working and solutions like Secured2 provide a viable alternative to the mess we find ourselves in today.