IBM unveils data protection engine for cloud era
IBM says of the more than nine billion data records lost or stolen since 2013, only 4% were encrypted
IBM has unveiled IBM Z, a new transaction system, capable of running more than 12 billion encrypted transactions per day and designed for use in the cloud.
The firm is looking to address data breaches, which it reckons are a major factor in the $2 trillion cybercrime impact on the global economy by 2019. IBM says of the more than nine billion data records lost or stolen since 2013, only 4% were encrypted.
According to IBM, the system’s cryptographic capability now extends across any data, networks, external devices or entire applications – such as the IBM Cloud Blockchain service.
Ross Mauri, general manager, IBM Z, says: “We have created a data protection engine for the cloud era that we believe will have a significant and immediate impact on global data security.”
If you desire stats and more proof, then IBM says bulk encryption at cloud scale is made possible by a 7x increase in cryptographic performance over the previous generation z13 – driven by a 4x increase in silicon dedicated to cryptographic algorithms.
The IBM Z key management system is designed to meet Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) Level 4 standards. In addition, IBM Secure Service Container protects against “Snowden-style insider threats from contractors and privileged users”, provides automatic encryption of data and code in-flight and at-rest, and tamper-resistance during installation and runtime.
Other features include encrypted APIs; and compliance with new standards such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Déjà Q
Normally we end on the letter Z, but in May, IBM built and tested its most powerful universal quantum computing processors – IBM Q.
IBM says this development opens up a range of possibilities within the fintech world. Namely, solutions to optimisation problems found in supply chains, modelling financial data, and risk analysis; making facets of artificial intelligence (AI) such as machine learning more powerful; or using the laws of quantum physics to enhance the security of private data in the cloud.
