Another day, another data breach. A key element in the proliferation of attacks is encryption, or lack thereof.
IBM reports that 82% of breaches last year involved data stored in the cloud. The global average cost of a data breach in 2023 is approximately $4.5 million.
Nigel Smart and his colleagues in Zama City aim to do something about this problem and ultimately help businesses build trust. Mr. Smart is the Chief Academic Officer of a Paris-based cryptography startup specializing in Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE).
Let’s explain that tidbit with the help of Smart. Data is typically encrypted in transit and in storage (such as on your hard drive). However, that data (for example, a set of sensitive customer information) must be decrypted for processing. This makes them more susceptible to theft. In contrast, FHE is end-to-end encryption that protects your data while it’s in use. The data itself can only be accessed by the owner of the decryption key.
In principle, a good FHE engine could encrypt the queries you type into Google. “Google performs the search on your behalf, but it doesn’t know what the response is. It sends that response to you, and you decrypt it,” Smart said.
Zama, which recently raised $73 million in Series A funding, is building an FHE solution for blockchain, the online ledger used to record transactions. Smart gives the example of blockchain showing customer activity at different banks. To ensure that no one can see each other’s accounts, Zama plans to add a layer at the top of the chain that will encrypt everything important while still allowing data processing.
FHE’s ability to encrypt online activities has many potential uses. Confidential credit scoring is one thing. To combat money laundering, banks can use his FHE to share information about criminal transactions without revealing any secrets. This encryption method also makes facial recognition more secure as it eliminates the need to hand over biometric data.
Homomorphic encryption belongs to a group known as privacy-enhancing technologies, a term Smart doesn’t like. Of the applications we’ve discussed so far, biometrics is the only one that really concerns privacy, he points out. “Everything else is about combining data.”
That’s why companies like Smart are promoting “partnership-enhancing technology” as a better solution. “It’s important to encourage partnerships in ways that allow data to be pooled to enable new business models and new ways of doing business,” he says. [so] You get the benefits of pooling your data without the negative thoughts. ”
It’s a question of trust, Smart added. “I want to overcome that wall of trust in a way that we can both make money, make decisions that are good for society, and whatever.”
wonderful. So when will homomorphic encryption become mainstream?
We’ll have to wait and see.
The blockchain company Zama works with is one of the early adopters. Microsoft’s Edge browser also uses homomorphic encryption to check whether the new password you choose matches the password compromised in the breach.
But for now, there are major obstacles to broader use. Computing encrypted and unencrypted data is probably 100,000 times slower, Smart explains. But this year or next, companies could produce accelerator chips that could significantly increase the speed at which encryption tools like Zama run.
“The combination of these two allows for widespread adoption,” Smart says of the combination of hardware and software. “You’re going to see more and more applications deploy this hardware as it’s loaded with accelerators and cloud infrastructure.”
Sounds like a worthwhile partnership.
nick rockell
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The partnership between professional sports and the gambling industry is a gamble, argues Harris Poll CEO Will Johnson. He has the numbers to back it up. As Johnson points out, sports betting remains a polarizing topic, with only half of U.S. adults viewing sports betting positively. It doesn’t help that gambling addiction is at an all-time high. About three-quarters of American adults believe widespread legalization of sports betting will only make the problem worse.
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