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Implementations
Data security can be performed at many levels, including
having the user applications encrypt the data. This was a feature supported on
many user applications, such as Microsoft Excel and Word. In each case, the
users supplied a password when they saved a document and, next, the data was
scrambled using the password as an encryption key. The recipient then needed to
supply exactly the same password to open the document. While somewhat effective,
this method relied on the user to implement it, forward the password in a secure
fashion to the recipient, and never forget the password for the life of the
document. Many corporate disasters occurred when an employee left the company,
for whatever reason, and critical data was unavailable.
In an effort to remove user involvement from the process,
technologies were developed that operated at the application layer, but remained
invisible to the end user. Some of these applications provided only partial
solutions to the problem. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is an example of
application encryption for web browsers that protects the confidentiality of
data sent from supported applications, but it doesn’t protect data sent from
other applications. Each host system on the network and all applications must be
SSL installed and configured to work efficiently. While this is better than
having the user manage encryption, too many opportunities still exist for the
system to fail. SSL typically requires increased administrator involvement when
computers or applications are added or changed.
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