Cyber Defense eMagazine February Edition for 2023

and planes. At the civilian level, embassies, hospitals, and branch/field offices also have their own micro
data centers at the edge, separate from their headquarters systems.
But extending core-level security out to edge environments is fraught with problems, from weather
conditions to bandwidth issues. These edge environments also may require solutions with very specific
size, weight and power constraints. What’s more, there is a very real need to deploy technology to protect
data if equipment should fall into the wrong hands.
Here are five key considerations to keep in mind when developing an ecosystem to protect data at the
edge.
Size constraints and hostile access
As mentioned earlier, the physical environment is a serious factor in edge security. The government is
specific about the size, weight and power (SWaP) requirements of equipment in tactical areas, and its
durability in extreme conditions.
Equally important is how to handle data security if equipment is taken by other parties in a conflict. Military
standards embrace NIST policies for the destruction of physical media after a sanitation process requiring
multiple overwrites of drives.
It’s important, however, that edge equipment comes with a cryptographic erase solution that protects
encrypted data. Data encryption keys, which are used to encrypt/decrypt data, can be erased or
destroyed without having to sanitize the storage drive. That way, data remains encrypted and
inaccessible, regardless of who controls the physical equipment.
Operationally, users at the edge may not be as experienced with data security measures as IT
professionals in data centers. Consequently, edge products need to be simple to use. Default
configurations must be secure and easy to understand.
In addition, systems at the edge can be susceptible to potential connectivity issues. These systems,
therefore, must be able to store and secure data locally, sending it back to the core once the connection
is restored. Units must be configurable at both the enterprise and local level, and when multiple units are
connected, they must also be capable of being managed and configured at the enterprise level.
Cryptographic key management
Encrypting data at the edge makes it harder on an organization’s IT security teams because they have
to manage multiple cryptographic keys for a variety of disparate encryption solutions. These encryption
solutions often provide native key management capabilities. This poses a real challenge because native
key management solutions are usually not interoperable and often results in system administrators
storing cryptographic keys in the same place as encrypted data. This practice is equivalent to leaving the
keys to the house under the doormat.
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