Introduction

Data is the most important asset for the company, and the impact of data breaches and hacks can be devastating. In 2023, the average cost of a data breach globally reached an all-time high of $4.45 million. In the United States, the average cost of a data breach was the highest, reaching as high as $9.48 million. Notably, breaches taking more than 200 days to identify had an average cost of $4.95 million, while those that took less than 200 days to be figured out cost around $3.93 million, 23% less. The sectors most affected often include healthcare and finance, where breaches not only involve significant immediate costs but also long-term reputational and operational damages. It was also noticed that account-takeover attempts rose by 354% over 2023.

Data security and integrity have become essential for any business, as seen in the numbers above. Some novel methods, such as data fragmentation with blockchain technology, can serve as a solution for data breaches. In this article, we will discuss data fragmentation in detail and how it can help avoid data breaches, significantly changing how data is stored and managed.

The Fundamentals of Decentralized Storage

Traditional cloud storage uses a single location to store and manage the data. On the other hand, decentralized systems distribute the data across a network of multiple independent servers. Since these servers are independent and geographically dispersed, the failure of one server does not affect the other servers, so your cloud operations are not vulnerable to a single location, keeping data more secure and accessible. In addition Decentralized storage keeps a record of all data transactions in an open-source and immutable ledger.

Before discussing the advantages of decentralized storage, let’s look at a real-world example of how centralized storage systems can be vulnerable to hacks and data breaches. 

Stanford University Data Breach: A Case Study

Recently, Stanford University’s Department of Public Health was targeted by a ransomware attack that lasted over three months. The attack exposed sensitive user data such as social security numbers, government IDs, and biometric data to the public. The university responded promptly by notifying law enforcement, and fortunately, there were no reported misuses of the leaked data.

Amidst the growing concern for such attacks, the CEO of Züs, Saswata Basu, advises businesses to move towards decentralized storage as early as possible. He also highlights the dire need to outmaneuver cyber attackers and focus more on protecting the data in the first place rather than finding ways to get the stolen data back. 

The Stanford University data breach brings out the vulnerabilities present in traditional centralized storage systems. The attack exposed sensitive information by exploiting a single point of failure, allowing hackers to access vast amounts of data stored on one central server. This incident depicts the significant risks associated with centralized storage, where the compromise of a single server can lead to extensive data exposure. The prolonged duration of the breach, lasting over three months, further highlights the challenges in detecting and addressing such attacks promptly. The lack of data fragmentation in traditional systems made it easier for attackers to extract complete sets of information, aggravating the impact of the breach.

In such situations, decentralized storage systems, such as Züs, address these vulnerabilities by distributing data across multiple independent servers. This fragmentation and encryption of data into smaller pieces ensure that even if one server is compromised, the attacker cannot reconstruct the entire dataset, vastly reducing the risk and impact of breaches. Additionally, decentralized systems utilize blockchain technology for continuous monitoring and tracking of data handling operations, enabling early detection and quicker responses to anomalies.  Eliminating single points of failure and enhancing data security through advanced fragmentation and encryption techniques, decentralized storage provides a stronger and more reliable solution for protecting sensitive information against cyber threats.

How Data Fragmentation Helps in Data Security

We will look at the decentralized cloud storage service offered by Züs Network as an example of the advantages offered by data fragmentation over traditional cloud-based servers.

Here are the advantages data fragmentation offers:

• Added Security: Utilizing erasure coding, data is fragmented across multiple servers, ensuring that compromising one server does not grant access to the entire dataset. To access the complete data, a hacker would need to breach multiple storage locations, which is a huge challenge, thereby enhancing overall security.

• Data Integrity and Immutability: Decentralized networks track data activities and conduct random challenges of data fragments to ensure data integrity. Through the integration of blockchain technology, all data transactions and activities are recorded on an immutable ledger distributed across the network. 

This immutable ledger provides a transparent and verifiable record of all changes made to the data, preventing unauthorized alterations and ensuring data integrity. Even in the face of cyber threats or system failures, immutability guarantees that stored data remains secure and unmodifiable, enhancing overall data security and reliability.

• No Single Point of Failure: Decentralized networks focus on distributing data across multiple servers eliminates the risk of a single point of failure. In the event of a server malfunction or outage, users can still access their data from other storage locations. The automatic repair system further enhances reliability by seamlessly reallocating data and ensuring uninterrupted access.

• Secured Collaboration: The use of proxy re-encryption allows users to securely share data with authorized collaborators. This ensures that sensitive information remains protected during collaborations, enabling teams to work together seamlessly and with peace of mind that their data will remain secure and private to them

• Encrypting the Fragments: Breaking data into smaller pieces and encrypting each fragment individually, multiple layers of protection are added to the data. This approach enhances security by making it extremely difficult for attackers to reconstruct the complete dataset, even if they gain access to individual fragments.

• High Data Availability and Reliability: Decentralized storage systems  guarantee exceptional data uptime, ensuring consistent access to digital assets without interruptions. Geo-distributed servers further improve resistance to service disruptions, ensuring high availability critical for businesses operating in dynamic environments. 

Additionally, the integration of immutability safeguards data integrity, guaranteeing that stored data remains tamper-proof and unalterable, even in the face of cyber threats or system failures.

Endnotes

Collecting and storing user data safely is essential for businesses. It is important to keep user data safe and be one step ahead of hackers, especially when advanced cyberattack techniques are used. Decentralized storage that uses data fragmentation can help tackle this issue. Service providers like Züs Network are gaining increasing popularity because of their strong security and privacy. Züs’s system provides clear insights into server usage, data fragment distribution, and server performance against set benchmarks. User data remains entirely private and under the user’s control, with no access granted to any external entity, including us or the government.

Opting for Züs’s decentralized storage system offers robust protection against data breaches, ensuring your data’s security and integrity. Züs’s unique approach of fragmenting and encrypting data across multiple servers makes unauthorized access virtually impossible. With blockchain technology, Züs provides transparency, immutability, and continuous monitoring of data handling, offering peace of mind and reliability. For businesses managing sensitive information, Züs delivers superior data protection, enhanced privacy, and the ability to securely share data. So, choose Züs to safeguard your valuable data and fortify your defenses against evolving cyber threats.

As more advancements are made in technology, hackers develop novel methods to break into servers. With this, adding multiple layers of security using data fragmentation is the most efficient and convenient way!

FAQs

1. How does decentralized cloud storage differ from traditional cloud storage?

Decentralized storages store the data on multiple independent smaller servers as compared to traditional clouds, which use a single powerful server to store all the data. Decentralized storages break down the data into smaller fragments and encrypt each fragment before storing it. The servers are often spread across multiple locations, making the servers truly independent.

2. What benefits does a decentralized storage system offer over a traditional one?

The most important benefits of using a decentralized system are enhanced security and privacy. These are the key benefits:

• Enhanced security: Rather than the data getting encrypted as a whole, it is fragmented into smaller pieces, and each fragment is encrypted independently before storing it on the server. This minimizes the risk of a complete data breach and makes it very hard for attackers to get their hands on the complete data.
• High data privacy and integrity: all activities of data handling are tracked by blockchain. This ensures that the stored data cannot be tampered with, making it immutable.
• Private data sharing: features like proxy re-encryption are used to create private data-sharing channels. This makes decentralized storage important for businesses handling sensitive data.
• Complete control over your data: The blockchain allows you to know where your data is stored. In case of any failures, your storage allocations are automatically repaired for data safety.

3. How scalable is decentralized storage?

Decentralized storage is highly scalable because it stores data on multiple servers. More servers can be added to the network to incorporate a growing user base and data. This makes decentralized storage an ideal option for businesses with fluctuating data demands.

4. What businesses can benefit the most from decentralized cloud storage?

Many businesses, especially those which value privacy the most, can benefit significantly from decentralized storage. Finance and healthcare-related businesses, which have personal financial records and information, and legal sectors dealing with confidential client information are the ideal users. Government agencies, which also deal with personal data and documents, should use decentralized storage for extra security.