Understanding Encryption

Encryption is “the process of transforming information…to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing special knowledge.” Encryption is used to protect both data “at rest” (i.e.: files stored on a computer or on a memory stick) and data in transit (such as sending large files via a system like FilesDIRECT).

Used by governments and businesses, data encryption has become a common practice in today’s Internet-connected world as an important method for securing personal communications and information.

Now, encryption itself is a complicated set of mathematical processes involving modular arithmetic, prime factors, etc. but the following video explains the process simply, using mixing paint as a metaphor. Basically, the gist of it is that it’s easy to combine 2 (or more) items (like numbers, or colors) but it can be very difficult to reverse the process.

Encryption is a key part of security online, and is essential if you want to keep private data safe from prying eyes. FilesDIRECT uses 128-bit AES encryption to protect our client’s file transfers - the same level of encryption used by e-commerce giant Amazon and by many banks - because it provides excellent security without unduly compromising upload or download speeds.

How secure are your file transfers?

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