{"id":1992,"date":"2019-10-04T05:14:21","date_gmt":"2019-10-04T05:14:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kusuaks7\/?p=1597"},"modified":"2024-03-14T11:14:15","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T11:14:15","slug":"what-is-homomorphic-encryption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.experfy.com\/blog\/bigdata-cloud\/what-is-homomorphic-encryption\/","title":{"rendered":"What is Homomorphic Encryption?"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Homomorphic encryption solves a vulnerability inherent in all other approaches to data protection<\/strong><\/h3><\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tImagine if you work in the financial services industry \u2014 or, maybe you already do. Every day, your organization handles a lot of personally identifiable information (PII) and financial data \u2014 information that needs to be encrypted both when it is stored (data at rest) and when it is being transmitted (data in transit). While modern encryption algorithms are virtually unbreakable<\/a> (because they require so much processing power that it makes the process of breaking it too costly and time-consuming to be feasible), they also make it impossible to process the data without first decrypting it \u2014 and decrypting your data could leave it vulnerable to hackers.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAs such, regardless of whether you\u2019re working with data at rest or data in transit, traditional public key encryption requires that data must be decrypted before it can be analyzed or manipulated. But what if we told you that there is a type of encryption that completely side-steps the need for decrypting the data before you use it \u2014 meaning that data integrity and privacy are protected while you process data in use?\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tYeah, you can stop skimming \u2014 we know that caught your attention. There is a way to provide the best and most personalized services to your customers while still preserving their privacy and confidentiality. It\u2019s known as homomorphic encryption (HE). But what exactly is homomorphic encryption and what are some real-world applications for it in data security?\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLet\u2019s hash it out.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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What is Homomorphic Encryption?<\/h2><\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIn a nutshell, homomorphic encryption is a method of encryption that allows any data to remain encrypted while it\u2019s being processed and manipulated. It enables you or a third party (such as a cloud provider) to apply functions on encrypted data without needing to reveal the values of the data. A homomorphic cryptosystem is like other forms of public encryption in that it uses a public key to encrypt data and allows only the individual with the matching private key to access its unencrypted data (though there are also examples of symmetric key homomorphic encryption as well). However, what sets it apart from other forms of encryption is that it uses an algebraic system to allow you or others to perform a variety of computations (or operations) on the encrypted data.\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIn practice, most homomorphic encryption schemes work best with data represented as integers and while using addition and multiplication as the operational functions. This means that the encrypted data can be manipulated and analyzed as though it\u2019s in plaintext format without actually being decrypted<\/em>. In other words, HE can enable your employees (or a third party) to work with and use the encrypted data without having access to or knowing the contents of the decrypted data. <\/strong>They can compute and process the encrypted data to get an encrypted answer, but only you can decrypt the ciphertext and understand what it means. Homomorphic encryption requires few rounds of interactions and uses arithmetic circuits (which focus on additions and multiplication, allowing you to add and multiply numbers) rather than Boolean circuits like other methods of secure computation (such as two-party computation [2PC] or general multi-party computation [MPC]).\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Real-World Challenges That Homomorphic Encryption Can Help Solve<\/h2><\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tIn an ideal world, homomorphic encryption has a multitude of practical, real-world applications \u2014everything from electronic voting systems<\/a> to analyzing medical data<\/a> to enabling private queries in search engines<\/a>. Some applications for homomorphic encryption include:\n