Cord3’s Encryption

Strong Today … Strong for the Future

To protect sensitive data at rest, Cord3 uses extremely strong, standards-compliant cryptography. There are two classes of cryptography:

• public-key cryptography, and
• symmetric cryptography

For encrypting data at rest, Cord3 only uses symmetric cryptography.

Most technologies combine public-key cryptography together with symmetric cryptography to make key management easier for users and software developers.

Traditionally, managing encryption keys for symmetric cryptography alone has been difficult to scale. Cord3’s product design and separation from applications and users overcomes these traditional challenges.

Cord3’s ability to only use standards-compliant symmetric cryptography for encryption at rest is important because of projected advances in quantum computing. The ongoing development of quantum computers is projected to be able to “break” widely used public-key cryptography algorithms, like the RSA algorithm and Elliptic-Curve Cryptography algorithms, within the next 5 to 15 years.

If large-scale quantum computers are ever built, they will compromise the security of many commonly used cryptographic algorithms.
In particular, quantum computers would completely break many public-key cryptosystems, including RSA, DSA, and elliptic curve cryptosystems -National Institute of Standards and Technologies (NIST): https://csrc.nist.gov/Projects/Post-Quantum-Cryptography/Post-Quantum-Cryptography-Standardization/Call-for-Proposals

Quantum computers are only projected to “completely break” public-key cryptography algorithms. Quantum computers are not projected to be able to compromise good symmetric cryptography algorithms, such as the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm used by Cord3 and many other encryption technologies, provided strong encryption keys are used.

Cord3’s encryption approach is “Quantum-Ready”todayfor encrypting data at rest because Cord3 only uses strong symmetric cryptography.

Facts about Cord3’s encryption:

• Cord3 uses the Advanced Encryption Standard Algorithm (AES)with 256-bit symmetric keys
• A different random key is used for every data asset(e.g., file, email, …) encrypted by Cord3
• Cord3 is Crypto-Agile –Cord3 can implement any strong symmetric encryption algorithm desired by a customer. Cord3 can change algorithms and deploy new software quickly, if needed or wanted by a customer.
• Cord3’s cryptographic module is FIPS 140-2 approved