Token Manager from nuBridges substitutes format-preserving tokens for sensitive data.

The number of electronic security breaches in the past year has climbed at a rate that makes one question whether moving to cloud computing at this time really make sense. Breaches during the past year exceeded that of the previous four years combined, and if that rate continues, the public will likely lose all faith in a company's ability to protect sensitive data--if it hasn't already.

Both industry organizations and the government have passed numerous data security regulations and privacy laws during the past several years. Many businesses as a result are stepping up to protect sensitive data, but breaches continue on a daily basis nevertheless. We have written in this column about the need for implementing a sound encryption solution in systems where personal data such as credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, customer loyalty information, and student records are kept. We also have offered several solutions that users might want to consider when reviewing the field of encryption products and services.

At the COMMON conference and expo in Reno, Nevada, last month, nuBridges demonstrated its latest advance in encryption technology. I spoke this week with Gary Palgon, vice president of product management at nuBridges, about the company's new tokenization product--Token Manager--that makes managing encrypted data a little easier. It protects sensitive data in remote facilities and also on development platforms that traditionally have used live data for testing. It also reduces the amount of storage otherwise needed by encrypted data.

Palgon explained that many of the data breaches we've read about in the news during the past few years have been the result of breaches occurring on servers beyond the central data repository. For instance, if you have a Windows-based point-of-sale application, a user's credit card data may be stored there. Then the data moves on to an e-commerce solution--say, on an AIX platform--before finally getting stored in DB2 on the System i. Now we have the person's credit card information stored in three places, which makes protecting it three times more difficult than if it's in only one location.

Token Manager, a component to nuBridges Protect, generates format-preserving tokens and inserts them in place of the sensitive data. Working in conjunction with Protect, the solution encrypts the original data and stores the ciphertext in a central data vault (or local vault, depending on the system). This not only secures the data, but also makes the encryption management process a lot easier to handle. Since the token is not actual data, the repository is unlikely to be under PCI scrutiny by an auditor so the scope of an audit can be reduced. 

Because of the increase in the number of breaches recently, companies are rushing toward encryption and other related security solutions, including, hashing, masking, and event logging. The only problem is that the more data you encrypt, the more difficult it becomes to effectively manage the necessary encryption keys. The keys have to be kept safe from unauthorized users, but they have to be available when you want to read the data.

Managing the various keys takes some finesse because a security officer has to first generate the key and then eventually destroy it. In between, he or she may have to distribute it, archive it, store it, rotate it, retrieve it, back it up, and set an expiration date for it. How these processes are managed is important not only because if you screw it up you could either give away access to--or lose access to--the data, but also because the procedures may be reviewed by an auditor at a future date.

The Payment Card Industry (PCI) and government regulations say how these keys will be handled. It can be a challenge that leads some companies to avoid the whole endeavor, but it's one of the few sure ways to protect customer data. Because the threat to sensitive data can reside not only outside an organization, but inside as well, encrypting or using tokens truly protects information from the bad guys. While external breaches get most of the headlines, the fact is nearly three-fourths of all breaches are the result of attacks or misuse from inside the organization that no firewall or perimeter security can protect against.

"Tokenization"--a term coined by nuBridges--is a new and promising technology that may allow midsize and larger companies to manage their encryption processes and encryption keys in a more streamlined and effective manner. The solution does require connectivity between remote locations where data is stored and the central repository. Where connectivity is not present, a local encryption solution is likely the better choice, either approach being one that Protect is said to manage elegantly.

Chris Smith was the Senior News Editor at MC Press Online from 2007 to 2012 and was responsible for the news content on the company's Web site. Chris has been writing about the IBM midrange industry since 1992 when he signed on with Duke Communications as West Coast Editor of News 3X/400. With a bachelor's from the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in English and minored in Journalism, and a master's in Journalism from the University of Colorado, Boulder, Chris later studied computer programming and AS/400 operations at Long Beach City College. An award-winning writer with two Maggie Awards, four business books, and a collection of poetry to his credit, Chris began his newspaper career as a reporter in northern California, later worked as night city editor for the Rocky Mountain News in Denver, and went on to edit a national cable television trade magazine. He was Communications Manager for McDonnell Douglas Corp. in Long Beach, Calif., before it merged with Boeing, and oversaw implementation of the company's first IBM desktop publishing system there. An editor for MC Press Online since 2007, Chris has authored some 300 articles on a broad range of topics surrounding the IBM midrange platform that have appeared in the company's eight industry-leading newsletters. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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