According to Coindesk, FHE is an emerging technology – often described as the “holy grail” of encryption – planned to allow data to stay encrypted when being analyzed in cloud or third-party environments.
Last week, IBM said that its new service, developed in-house, will allow clients to start experimenting with technology to improve the privacy of their internal IT architectures.
IBM stated:
“While current encryption techniques allow data to be protected during storage and in transit, data must be decrypted while it is being processed or analyzed – creating a window of opportunity where data is more vulnerable to theft or exposure.”
Data leaks have become an important issue for enterprises. One making headlines this week saw personal details of clients of cryptocurrency hardware wallet maker Ledger exposed on an online forum.
Research and advisory company, Gartner predicts that by 2025 at least 20% of businesses will be budgeting for programs that require homomorphic encryption, up from less than 1% currently.