Data security solutions
The default state of sensitive data should always be "encrypted unless it is part of an active computation" (Ten Commandments of Software by the US Department of Defense). In 2022, enabling the “data at rest encryption” checkbox and using TLS are not enough to call it “a data security system”.
Modern data security layer allows to keep data encrypted but searchable, anonymized for BI teams, and available for authorized users. We have been building various data security solutions since 2014 to keep data highly usable, software products fast and efficient, and business flows uninterrupted.
Typical challenges with data security
Developers are not crypto engineers
For many developers, cryptography is terra incognita: trial and error approach leads to improper cryptographic choices, using low entropy secrets, storing keys poorly, or even home-brewing their own crypto.
Key management is hard
Key management flow is more than "how to generate keys and where to store them". It depends on tech stack, product UX, key rotation, revocation and incident response policies, regulations and compliance.
Compliance is vague
There is a growing gap between the general compliance demands — which cannot be implemented by a standardised checklist — and the practical implementation efforts. Crypto export regulations and compliance demands are quite far from the capabilities of modern crypto.
Attackers are not a myth
Cryptographic Failures is #2 of OWASP Top10 2021. Practical and exploited crypto-related bugs are everywhere: padding oracle, DROWN, CRIME, Lucky Thirteen, ROCA, and many more.
Modern data security solutions
Novel methods to make crypto more usable
Approaches like searchable encryption (encryption that allows searching for data without decrypting it), format preserving encryption, homomorphic computations, zero-knowledge proofs, PQC, and so on.
Anonymisation and tokenisation
Encryption, anonymisation, and tokenisation can work together for better flexibility and security of data processing. Privileged applications receive data in plaintext, while non-privileged ones receive pseudonyms.
Application level encryption
ALE with deep data-flow integration becomes a new standard. Client-side (like in MongoDB) or server-side (like in Acra) encryption allows to encrypt sensitive data fields before storing them in the database.
Tools and services we offer
Themis
As a high-level cross-platform cryptographic library for mobile, web, and server platforms, Themis helps to integrate application level encryption fast and easy. It solves 90% of typical data protection use cases that are common for most apps.
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Acra
Acra makes field level encryption and searchable encryption easily integrated into existing infrastructures. Acra allows encrypting database fields “on the fly” without changing code, while Acra’s Data firewall and Anomalies Detection protect against suspicious activity.
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Hermes
A security framework for end-to-end encrypted data flow. Hermes provides cryptographically protected data processing and data collaborating without the need to re-encrypt an excessive amount of data.
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Custom data security engines
Data security is not just encryption: masking, tokenisation, anonymisation, compartmentalisation and segmentation – we suggest the most suitable security engineering techniques aimed at protecting different types of data.
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Searchable encryption
Apart from searchable encryption in Acra, we’ve dealt with various searchable encryption schemes from blind indices and bloom filters to homomorphic encryption.
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Multi-layered protections
Cryptography doesn't work alone. Typically, implementing data security requires integration with other security controls: cross-services authentication, API hardening, PKI, access control, audit logging, effective backups.
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Security layers for complex use cases
We build data security layers for complicated use cases: encrypted CRDT-based data collaboration, multi-device & multi-user synchronisation, DRM-like protections for TensorFlow ML models, UX-friendly security for apps that work on millions of devices.
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SSDLC
We help teams set up and improve the SSDLC for application development. We assist in prioritising and implementing security features, suggest automated tools and follow the latest security guidelines and regulations.
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Auditing and reviewing
We do security audits and review designs of existing implementations to give you a picture of how your application protects sensitive data, APIs, performs authentication, attest devices, etc.
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How we make a difference
Extensive experience and expertise
As a cryptographic R&D team, we're engaged in building custom data security controls in various contexts. We've gained extensive expertise in learning practical threat models and failure scenarios and mitigating them with sound security controls.
Transparent to you, transparent to users
We build security measures to mitigate core threats of your product, without causing a headache of your developers, without delaying releases' schedule or ruining UX for your users.
Built to last
Our work is based on maintainability, backwards compatibility, and support. Your encrypted data will never be lost because of the outdated npm package.
For innovators, by innovators
We've started Cossack Labs to develop new tools and methods for protecting the data and enabling novel solutions to emerging problems — so that at the edge of your innovation, you’ve already got fitting tools handy.
Contact us
There are many ways we can help: with our products, bespoke solutions, and engineering services. Leave your contact information to connect with our team:
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