Enveil, the cybersecurity company that specializes in protecting data in use, introduced its latest innovation – ZeroReveal Compute Fabric – this week. The technology is a two-party platform that enables users to access a variety of Enveil’s ZeroReveal solutions to protect data in its most vulnerable state: when it is being used.

“Continued reports of chip flaws and data breaches in recent months make it clear that encrypting data at rest and in transit isn’t good enough in today’s volatile security environment,” Enveil founder and CEO Ellison Anne Williams explained. “Organizations must eliminate the Data in Use security gap and do so in a way that won’t negate investments in existing systems and protocols.”

“We allow you to securely use data where it is and as it is today, delivering nation-state level security – no system overhaul required.”

Ellison Anne Williams, Enveil founder and CEO, demonstrating the company’s technology at FinovateFall 2017.

Because most data needs to be decrypted when subjected to search or analytics, a potential vulnerability exists every time data is being accessed. With Enveil, this “last gap in data security” is sealed, giving enterprises the ability to securely work with both encrypted and unencrypted data in the cloud, on premises, and in between.

Enveil is an innovator in the field of homomorphic encryption, a protocol that has been known for more than 30 years but until now never practically applied to consumer use. In an article for Dark Reading last month, Williams pointed to the value of homomorphic encryption, which she referred to as the “holy grail” of cryptography.

“If we ignore the need to protect data while it’s being processed (in use), it really doesn’t matter how secure the data is on the way to the vault (in transit) or while stored in the vault (at rest); an attacker can simply patiently wait until the data is completely exposed during use to steal it,” Williams wrote. “Homomorphic encryption can ensure this final piece of the data security puzzle is solved by eliminating the data in-use security gap.”

This week, Williams referred to the company’s Compute Fabric as the first practical application of this technology. “And certainly the first to have any kind of nation-state security certification coming out of active deployment in the operational capacity,” she added.

Enveil’s Compute Fabric technology builds on the company’s previous client stand-alone application for point-to-point security during data use. The new solution represents an expansion of that product, providing more multiple deployment options and enterprise-wide security. Additionally, Enveil’s solutions do not require firms to replace their current cybersecurity systems in order to defend data in use.

Enveil demonstrated its data security technology at FinovateFall 2017. The company’s point-to-point solution featured a client application that encrypts operations and decrypts results. Enveil’s server application resides inside the environment of the data repository and processes encrypted operations over the data.

The company’s solutions are deployed in a variety of industries including financial services, healthcare, supply chain, and cloud security. Enveil has raised $4 million in funding and includes Thomson Reuters, In-Q-Tel, DataTribe, and Bloomberg Beta among its investors.

“Never decrypt,” says Ellison Anne Williams, CEO at ENVEIL, which provides a data security solution that the finance industry desperately needs. It lets enterprises operate on data (query/analytics) without ever revealing the content of the interaction, the results, or the data itself.

Having previously worked at the National Security Agency (NSA), Ellison Anne’s insights span the whole Big Data picture, aiming to ensure encryption “throughout its entire life-cycle – at rest, in transit, and in use.” We interviewed Williams at last month’s FinovateFall 2017 in New York. Below is the transcript.”

 

Finovate: What is unique about ENVEIL’s approach to securing data?

Williams: Although the company is in its early stages, ENVEIL’s completely unique technology has been in development for far longer. I worked at NSA for 12 years, where the technology was developed.

Current data encryption products still leave gaps of exposure during search and analytic processing. Our response to this problem is to never decrypt, and we have developed the first scalable commercial solution for keeping data encrypted at all times, even when it’s being processed. ENVEIL’s solution uses homomorphic encryption to secure data in use, enabling enterprises to operate on information, both encrypted and unencrypted (such as searches and analytics) without ever revealing the content or results of the operation in the cloud, on-premise, or anywhere in between. Our point-to-point product allows organizations to perform searches and analytics over data in a completely encrypted manner.

 

Finovate: How difficult was this challenge? Why have other approaches to solving this problem failed?

Williams: Previously, decryption was required before searching or analyzing data which leaves the data and the results of the operations potentially vulnerable to outsiders. ENVEIL’s proprietary algorithms, for which 14 patents have been filed to date, enable a method of encryption that protects in-use data to be used at a larger scale. This is the first time in over 20 years of work into homomorphic encryption that this kind of scale has been achieved.

Similar approaches are the current alternatives/workarounds for securing data in use. These competitive behaviors include: not storing store sensitive data in the cloud, maintaining all data on premises; bringing all external data home and performing all searches and analytics on isolated infrastructure; obfuscating operations; asking 100 questions to hide the one that you care about; and, blatant risk exposure by insecurely interacting with data in untrusted locations.

 

Finovate: What are some of the key technological accomplishments or insights that were necessary to make your solution possible?

Williams: ENVEIL’s core technology was developed and deployed at scale inside of the U.S. Intelligence community over petabyte-sized datasets and processing architectures. The point-to-point product is a two-party system consisting of (1) the ENVEIL Client Application and (2) the ENVEIL Server Application. The ENVEIL Client application lives within the Enterprise and is responsible for encrypting the operations and decrypting the results. While, the Server application lives within the environment of the data repository and is responsible for processing the encrypted operations over the data. ENVEIL supports many APIs for submitting operations to the ENVEIL client including REST and JDBC. Therefore, it is simple and seamless to integrate ENVEIL into an enterprise’s existing workflow.

 

Finovate: What are some of the most interesting use cases of your technology, particularly in the financial services area?

Williams: Financial institutions are constantly creating, updating, and sharing some of society’s most sensitive data (financial records, trade secrets, etc.). Without strong protections, they are at risk of losing critical information and the trust of their customers, partners and employees. It is imperative that financial institutions securely interact with data whether it is on premise, or in the cloud and keep sensitive data encrypted even when it’s being used to ensure that the queries and analytics performed are done without ever decrypting the operations, or the data.

Key use cases include:

1. Securing the financial institution’s usage of data outside of its walls, such as in the cloud or in a data aggregator. Examples include protecting searches for things like M&A or trading research where their interest in a specific M&A target or potential trade could be costly.

2. Securing the financial institution’s usage of ‘crown jewel’ data on premise, greatly reducing the exposure of the data (eliminating exposure during processing) and therefore risk and financial impact.

In less than one year, the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will replace existing data protection rules, impacting companies worldwide. The GDPR includes strict security requirements, with an emphasis on encryption, as part of an overall risk-based approach to cybersecurity. This includes communication, which is a large security concern for the financial industry – sensitive information is constantly being shared across networks, platforms, etc., and if left unprotected, could have a devastating impact on the organization.

In addition to financial services, the use cases for ENVEIL’s robust, horizontal technology span a wide range of large market verticals including cloud security, healthcare, cyber, audit, and supply chain.

 

Finovate: As an expert in this area, how do you react to the almost weekly news of a major data breach? Is this “the new normal”?

Williams: Unfortunately, it has become the new normal and highlights the need to protect data throughout its entire life-cycle – at rest, in transit, and in use.

 

Finovate: ENVEIL participated in the RSAC Innovation Sandbox Contest in February, and made its Finovate debut in September. What’s can we look forward to over the balance of this year and into 2018?

Williams: We will be developing new products around securing data in use – stay tuned!

 

Watch ENVEIL’s full demo at FinovateFall 2017: