Organizations are increasingly moving sensitive workloads to the cloud, which raises concerns about data privacy and security. The fear of unauthorized access to data in use has been a significant barrier to cloud adoption, especially for industries handling sensitive information subject to regulatory compliance. The average data breach cost reached an all-time high in 2023 of $4.45 million. For US-based companies, the average cost was twice that figure — $9.48 million. On average, organizations take more than nine months to identify and contain a data breach. Data breaches are costly for healthcare companies, which reported an average data breach cost of $10.9 million.
Enterprises require assurance that their data remains protected, not just when it’s stored or in transit, but crucially when it’s processing. Confidential computing addresses this by ensuring the data is encrypted and inaccessible to unauthorized entities, including the cloud provider. This technology is pivotal in extending the benefits of cloud computing to sensitive workloads. It helps foster trust and compliance with data protection regulations like GDPR, ultimately enabling a more flexible, modern public cloud infrastructure.
What is ‘confidential computing’?
Confidential computing is a transformative approach to securing data. It refers to data protection during processing by isolating it within a secure enclave or trusted execution environment (TEE) on the CPU. This technology ensures that sensitive data remains encrypted even during computation, addressing the industry’s concerns about data confidentiality, mainly when using cloud services.
Terminology definitions
Trusted execution environment (TEE): A secure area within a processor that ensures sensitive data processes in a tamper-resistant environment.
Attestation: A process ensuring only authorized code can run within the TEE.
Data in use: Active data undergoing processing, as opposed to data at rest or in transit.
Approach to ‘confidential computing’ for enterprise
Enterprises can adopt confidential computing by leveraging TEEs to protect data in use. This approach involves hardware-based security measures that create a secure data processing enclave inaccessible to unauthorized users or systems.
Confidential computing technology
The core of confidential computing technology lies in the TEE, where data processes are encrypted and protected by embedded encryption keys and attestation mechanisms. This ensures that even if the surrounding environment is compromised, the data within the TEE remains secure.
Industry best practices
- Implement TEEs for sensitive workloads
- Ensure data remains encrypted throughout its lifecycle
- Regularly update and patch systems to protect against vulnerabilities
Business benefits
Confidential computing offers several business benefits:
- Enhanced security: Protects against unauthorized access to sensitive data in use
- Regulatory compliance: Meets stringent data protection regulations
- Competitive advantage: Enables secure data sharing and collaboration, fostering innovation
Conclusion
Confidential computing represents a significant step forward in data security, providing a robust solution for protecting data. As enterprises continue to embrace digital transformation, adopting confidential computing will be critical in ensuring data privacy and security in the cloud era.
By integrating confidential computing into their cloud strategy, organizations can unlock new possibilities for secure data utilization, collaboration and innovation, all while maintaining compliance with evolving data protection regulations. The future of cloud computing is confidential and the time to adopt this technology is now.
