Bitglass granted patent on searchable cloud encryption

Bitglass has been granted a patent for its searchable full-strength 256-bit AES encryption for cloud applications. The technology, covered by US Patent 9,047,480, is immediately available in Bitglass Enterprise Edition.

“Prior approaches to searchable encryption came in two flavors – weak cyclic ciphers from the Roman empire or currently impracticable homeomorphic approaches that propose new algorithms from scratch,” said Nat Kausik, CEO, Bitglass. “The Bitglass system uniquely delivers full-strength searchable encryption on top of established cryptographic standards such as AES.”

With this technology, sensitive corporate data and an encrypted search index are pulled out of cloud applications like Salesforce, Office 365 and Box and stored encrypted in the organization’s private cloud. This innovation combines the trusted security of a private cloud with the flexibility of public cloud applications.

Bitglass’ patented technology simultaneously maintains security (FIPS 140-2 Certified 256-bit AES encryption with 256-bit initialization vectors) and application functionality (sorting, wildcard search, auto-complete and more).

“Until now, enterprises with sensitive data have faced the seemingly impossible task of making that information available to employees anywhere, anytime, while ensuring that the data is secure and meets increasingly stringent compliance requirements. Bitglass’ solution enables enterprises to achieve the best of both worlds,” said Martin Hellman, a security expert best known as the co-inventor of public key cryptography.

In an effort to preserve full application operations, the first generation of cloud encryption gateways were forced either to develop unproven, proprietary encryption schemes, or to water down the strength of the encryption in order to preserve the operation of the application.