AXEL Network Products:

AXEL GO - share and store files securely.

LetMeSee - photo sharing app.

  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

AXEL.org

  • Network
  • Technology
  • Applications
  • Blog
  • About
    • Team
    • Press
    • Careers
    • Patents
  • Contact Us
  • Login
    • AXEL Go
    • AXEL Cloud

Blog

August 5, 2022

AXEL News Update

Axel News May 2021

It’s an exciting time for AXEL. Here are our top recent news items:

  • AXEL Secures a New Patent
    • Patent number 11,281,572 is a continuation of our Pervasive Intermediate Network Attached Storage Application patent family. This marks one further step into the realm of innovative and secure digital storage methods.
  • AXEL Partners with the New York City Bar (NYC BAR)
    • Thanks to a new partnership with the NYC BAR, over 25,000 diverse legal professionals now have access to encryption backed by blockchain technology. AXEL Go is a cutting-edge and highly secure method for retrieving, storing, and sharing any amount of sensitive data.
  • AXEL Go launches its $10,000 Data Security Guarantee
    • In response to increased security standards for data among legal professionals, AXEL has launched its $10,000 Data Security Guarantee. This guarantee stipulates a $10,000 payment to a user of AXEL Go that finds themselves subject to a legal malpractice judgement.
  • AXEL completes its integration of AXEL Go into Clio Manage and launches a defensible metadata preservation feature in Secure Fetch.
    • Clio’s 150,000 users can now collect and share files of any size, all within the Clio platform using AXEL Go, the secure file sharing and transfer software. With its metadata preservation feature, AXEL Go is a defensible, cost-effective and easy-to-use option for legal professionals to collect evidence, while preserving crucial metadata and for smaller document collections, AXEL Go eliminates the need for costly forensic examiners.
  • AXEL Announces New Partnership with American Bar Association
    • ABA members part of the Solo, Small Firm and General Practice Division (GPSolo) can now take advantage of exclusive discounts on AXEL Go.
  • AXEL Partners with Cal Bar Affinity and California Lawyers Association (CLA)
    • California’s legal professionals now have access to AXEL Go. Featuring military-grade encryption and blockchain technology, AXEL Go is an economic and highly secure way to collect, store or share any amount of data or files.
  • AXEL Announces Partnership with Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity
    • AXEL is excited to provide all 330,000 members of the Phi Alpha Delta Law Fraternity with access to AXEL Go, the most private and secure way to send and receive data. AXEL continues to encourage awareness and education regarding the importance of data privacy and data custody during Cybersecurity Awareness Month.
  • AXEL Go will soon be integrated with Clio Manager
    • AXEL Go will soon be integrated with Clio, a trusted, secure software for law practice management. Featuring AXEL Go’s signature features including Private Share and Secure Fetch, this new integration will offer Clio users unprecendented control of their most important documents.
  • Another New Blockchain Patent for AXEL
    • On the heels of last week’s issuing, AXEL was approved for another new United States patent. This blockchain patent, 11,132,456, relates to being able to share lists of files, a similar function to what we use on AXEL Go with the Create List feature. It is the 17th patent issued to AXEL. An updated link to U.S.P.O. will be given. AXEL has received word that we have another on the way, bringing the total to 18 patents!
  • AXEL Go featured on KTNV’s Morning Blend
    • AXEL’s VP of Marketing, John Svoboda, talks about how AXEL Go, the next-generation cloud storage and file-sharing application used to collect, store, and share files more privately and securely, can keep you safe from cyberterrorism, hacks and ransomware attacks.
  • AXEL Go receives positive review from Lawyerist
    • Rating AXEL Go 4.8/5 stars, Lawyerist called AXEL Go “a great solution” and “a secure way to get confidential documents from … clients with ease.” Read the full review here.

This page will be updated regularly as the company grows and our technology matures. Please check back soon for more AXEL news!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

August 5, 2022

AXEL Events

AXEL speaker events

AXEL regularly hosts events to educate people on topics such as data security, decentralized technology, digital privacy, and more. Upcoming events include:

  • Summit for Corporate Governance – August 12, 9AM PT. AXEL is excited to be a sponsor of the Summit for Corporate Governance. The conference is focused on modern issues facing boards of directors, and includes panels with sitting directors, legal professionals and law school faculty.
  • TECHLAW.FEST – September 22-24. AXEL is virtually attending 2021 TECHLAW.FEST. Learn about new and innovative legal tech and how AXEL offers security solutions to legal professionals with AXEL Go, the secure file-sharing and storage software.

Our most recent past events were:

  • Connecticut Legal Conference – AXEL sponsored a session at the Connecticut Legal Conference, discussing the importance of data security for all legal professionals.
  • State Bar of Nevada Annual Bar Conference –  AXEL is proud to be a featured Exhibitor at the State Bar of Nevada’s Annual Bar Conference held in San Diego, California. We highlighted AXEL Go; our secure, private file-sharing and online storage platform. Nevada attorneys saw how they can meet their ethical obligations to data security by using AXEL Go.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

August 5, 2022

Why IPFS is the Future of Internet Storage Systems

Let’s demystify IPFS

IPFS is a new and growing technology that underpins some of the most exciting innovations in tech since it took the stage in 2015. AXEL Go and its decentralized server structure takes full advantage of IPFS to secure your data, but how does that work? Why does AXEL Go use the IPFS protocol over something more familiar like HTTP or FTP? IPFS holds several advantages over these protocols of the past and protects our clients like nothing the internet has seen before. Join us as we take a trip into IPFS 101.

What Should You Know about IPFS?

IPFS is a distributed peer-to-peer file-sharing system that is used online to store and access anything from the most basic bit of data to personal documents and websites. It is easy to think of the InterPlanetary File System as an over-complicated, difficult-to-grasp protocol with no practical applications in the real world. This couldn’t be further from the truth. IPFS is simply the next evolution in a rapidly growing and changing internet.

In 2015, IPFS was born. At this time, a team at a company called Protocol Labs began working on a decentralized method of storing and accessing files. CEO Juan Benet and his developers worked tirelessly on the protocol, taking inspiration from other decentralized methods of sharing information, such as the BitTorrent protocol, which had been growing in popularity since 2001.

When Protocol Labs set out to develop IPFS, it initially had very little to set it apart from something like BitTorrent or similar decentralized methods of collective data storage and sharing. With time, however, IPFS set itself apart from the file sharing protocols it took inspiration from by aiming to create a decentralized global network.

How IPFS Works

IPFS is a set of rules that govern how data is shared and stored across a set of servers. A server, as defined by the IPFS protocol, can be something as complex as a server warehouse or as humble as a smartphone. What matters most to the IPFS framework is the ability to house a fragment of data for later retrieval. How does this basic framework scale up to create the framework for a distributed internet? How does IPFS differ from your standard internet protocol

The internet, as we currently understand it uses the familiar HTTP protocol. This is, at its core, a method of storing and distributing data to users, similar to how IPFS works. When a client wants to access a site or the data held on a single server, their machine sends a request, and the server on the other end replies by granting or denying access to the data requested. This method has been acceptable enough for the early days of the internet. Still, as the technology available to the layperson has grown in sheer power and accessibility, HTTP has shown its age in recent years.

Decentralization

A single server acting as a digital air traffic controller creates a great many shortfalls. The massive point of failure is most glaringly sitting right in the middle of this model. If a centralized server goes offline, be that through nefarious or benign methods, clients all over the planet will be denied access. Bad actors will take advantage of this fact when executing DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks or regular infiltration attacks. When a single server is in charge of crucial data, it necessarily becomes a gleaming target for bad actors.

By taking advantage of a distributed structure, IPFS becomes exponentially more stable and secure. IPFS stores the information on multiple servers, or nodes, all around the world. This distribution increases stability by creating numerous points of access that can act as backups no matter the state of a single node. Decentralizing data in this way makes it practically impossible for bad actors to fall back on their old tricks. DDoS attacks simply will not find a foothold on a distributed internet, and grabbing ahold of the data in a single IPFS node will not give hackers enough information to decrypt.

IPFS is an internet protocol that strives for more than simply reinventing the wheel. Its structure acts as a protective layer for clients online and the internet at large. 

The Benefits of IPFS 

Beyond additional security and a significant boost to privacy, IPFS mainly sets out to do precisely what the internet does in its current state. To the average user, it may seem like nothing has changed on the surface. Still, their essential experience and expectation of the future will fundamentally change the more we as a digital community can fold IPFS into our lives.

IPFS promises to put more control into the hands of the people. In Turkey, for example, Wikipedia was blocked across the country. With the help of IPFS and decentralized storage, the people of Turkey could visit a fully-featured archive of Wikipedia’s entire wealth of knowledge. This marvel of community was made possible by IPFS and the inherent benefits of a decentralized server structure.

By creating spaces on the internet that can not be removed by knocking over a single server, millions of users can gain access to data that would otherwise fall victim to privacy overreach. Decentralized structures make it impossible to wrangle all of an entity’s data in a single place, making IPFS nodes safe to store private information. Comparing centralized servers to IPFS node structure shows us the clear advantage that IPFS has when it comes to protecting privileged information from bad actors and any interested parties for which they may be gathering this data.

Why AXEL Go Uses IPFS

AXEL Go is a decentralized storage and security service that believes in privacy above all else. AXEL Go rides the cutting–edge of technology by employing several of the most exciting innovations in computer science and data transfer protocols.

For AXEL, the InterPlanetary File System represents the next step in privacy and security online. AXEL Go uses end-to-end encryption to protect and obscure data when in transit to clients and from the decentralized nodes that make up its server structure. However, the distributed nature of these nodes provides a sizable bulk of the security and privacy once data is sitting safely on these servers.

IPFS gives AXEL the freedom to protect our clients as fiercely as possible without compromising our customers’ privacy and autonomy. The decentralized nature of our server structure means that AXEL has no control over the data our customers store on our nodes. IPFS also gives our customers peace of mind in the form of robust data backups and drastically reduced chances of server failure. The sort of centralized blackouts that would bring a service like Dropbox or Google Drive to its knees would need to happen dozens of times over before AXEL Go would feel a similar effect. 

IPFS is the server structure of the future, and AXEL is happy to take advantage of this rapidly growing technology’s security, privacy, and reliability. Together with our end-to-end encryption, secure fetch, and password-protected file-sharing sessions, AXEL Go is bringing privacy and security to the workplace one file-share at a time.

Try AXEL Go Today

AXEL Go is an incredibly versatile tool in the fight for cyber security. Implementing our decentralized, encrypted storage into a workplace will create a robust bulwark between sensitive workplace data and any clever exploits hackers can slip through the cracks.


AXEL Go is a file storage and sharing service designed to revolutionize how we think about security online. Our user experience design is focused on handing top-of-the-line security to any business of any size. Our AES-256 bit encryption and decentralized server structure thwart cyber attacks on big businesses as competently as it protects local operations. No matter how tight the budget for your practice may be, we are the perfect fit for secure, intuitive storage file sharing. You can try AXEL Go premium for free for 14 days. See what security backed by our $10,000 guarantee can do for your business.


Filed Under: Business, Front Page Blogs, Tech Tagged With: communication, customer data, cybercrime, data analytics, data privacy, data protection, data security, ddos, http, IPFS, marketing, Security, Social Media, technology

July 29, 2022

Protecting the workplace from Day 1 Exploits

An exploit can crop up when you least expect it

There’s nothing like the feeling of picking up a new piece of tech. Fresh hardware and software always come with that new toy feeling, even if it is just a new application to keep our workplaces organized as they expand in size and scope. Adding top-of-the-line software to a machine often lends a newfound sense of security to a home office or a workplace. There are, however, unexpected downsides whenever new software or hardware is adopted. One of the most significant breaches of trust is the Day 1 exploit. When a new product or piece of hardware launches, the technology is expected to operate as intended. Unfortunately, hackers and other bad actors enjoy finding the smallest openings in the newest tech. Often a Day 1 exploit will be caught early enough for the developers to patch over the holes, but what happens when they aren’t quick enough to act? What be done as a consumer placing trust in a tech company? How do workplaces protect themselves against these exploits? 

 What is a Day 1 Exploit

A Day 1 exploit is the closest real-world hacking comes to the hacking we see in the movies. Simply put, a Day 1 exploit is an opening a hacker finds during the first day of a product’s release. These exploits can be as simple as realizing a password input prompt can be bypassed or as sophisticated as finding holes in the code after mining and reading the code that runs the software or device. The thing to realize about Day 1 exploits is that they can happen to any product upon release. These exploits crop up as a result of typical human oversight. 

In April of 2022, Apple was forced to rush out a Day 0 patch (a patch pushed out before the release of a product or service) for a potentially disastrous exploit that had been baked into their devices. The exploit in question would have given bad actors kernel access to macOS and iOS devices. Had these exploits not been found in time, then bad actors would have had complete and total control over the devices of Apple users for a distressing amount of time. The malware that could have been born out of this potential Day 1 threat would have wrested the data out of the hands of hundreds of thousands of businesses across the world. 

These security holes are found as often as new technology hits the market. What would the tech world look like had Apple not caught its oversight in time? That is the danger of the Day 1 exploit. These exploits typically give bad actors access to the deepest parts of a machine. They are particularly viscous and easy to distribute once discovered. Tech companies dedicate entire workforces to quality testing their code before allowing them to hit the digital shelves of the world because the reputation hits associated with giving hackers unfettered access to a hard drive are usually catastrophic. Day 1 and Day 0 patches are typically required installations before a user is granted permission to use for this reason. Irritating update prompts exist to protect end users from the mistakes tech companies make during development.

How to Protect Your Business From These Exploits

The unfortunate reality of Day 1 exploits is that there is no way to know when an organization will fall short on its research and development. These exploits are a phenomenon that naturally arises as a consequence of the intersection between human failure and human ingenuity. How then, are businesses able to defend against the unknowable? Protecting an organization or personal workspace from day zero exploits is a manner of understanding and implementing strong digital hygiene. 

First and foremost is creating a secure data management plan. When a workplace comes into contact with the internet, points of failure are instantly introduced into a system. The internet is a magnificent and dangerous place to work, but that danger can be easily mitigated with a few easy-to-implement best practices. One of the most popular methods of control a hacker will implement these days is the ransomware attack. The goal of a ransomware attack is to deny access to crucial information by locking users out of their own machines, and in some cases, it will involve locking down entire personal networks. 

Creating easily accessible secure backups of all of the data required for a workplace is easily the simplest and most secure method of preventing a ransomware attack. Decentralized, encrypted storage spaces are incredibly difficult to breach from the outside.  This means a successful attack on a system via a Day 1 exploit will fizzle out regardless of how successful hackers are in locking a machine out of its data. Some of the most security-minded workplaces may want to consider keeping private data off of hard drives entirely. Ransomware and other malware attacks try to pull data directly out of a machine’s memory,  the easiest way to prevent this from happening in the case of an exploit is to simply keep data from living locally. Keeping decentralized backups of crucial data will create a cloud of security that is easily accessible no matter where the point of access happens to be located.

Using encrypted methods of communication wherever possible will provide not only privacy but a digital footprint that is nearly impossible to track. Consider for a moment the difference between an email attachment and the secure fetch method provided by AXEL Go. In a workplace seized by bad actors with access to servers ripe with abandoned email attachments, these attachments can be easily cracked open and sucked dry of their private information. Secure fetch methods generate a unique sharing session with a customizable expiration date that is encrypted from end to end and may easily be password protected. Secure fetch is a file sharing method that quickly and easily allows transfer between colleagues while giving every party involved total control over their sharing session.

Try AXEL Go Today

AXEL Go is an incredibly versatile tool in the fight for cyber security. Implementing our decentralized, encrypted storage into a workplace will create a robust bulwark between sensitive workplace data and any clever exploits hackers are able to slip through the cracks.

AXEL Go is a file storage and sharing service designed to revolutionize how we think about security online. Our user experience design is focused on handing top-of-the-line security to any business of any size. Our AES-256 bit encryption and decentralized server structure thwart cyber attacks on big businesses as competently as it protects local operations. No matter how tight the budget for your practice may be, we are the perfect fit for secure, intuitive storage file sharing. You can try AXEL Go premium for free for 14 days. See what security backed by our $10,000 guarantee can do for your business.


Citations

“Blog | Day One Exploits: How To Effectively Reduce The Threat”. 2022. CIS. https://www.cisecurity.org/insights/blog/day-one-exploits-how-to-effectively-reduce-the-threat.

2022. https://www.trellix.com/en-us/security-awareness/cybersecurity/what-is-a-zero-day-exploit.html.

“What Is A Zero-Day Exploit | Protecting Against 0Day Vulnerabilities | Imperva”. 2022. Learning Center. https://www.imperva.com/learn/application-security/zero-day-exploit/.

“Apple Rushes Out Patches For 0-Days In Macos, Ios”. 2022. Threatpost.Com. https://threatpost.com/apple-rushes-out-patches-0-days-macos-ios/179222/.

“Top 10 Common Types Of Cybersecurity Attacks | Datto Security Solutions”. 2022. Datto.Com. https://www.datto.com/blog/cybersecurity-101-intro-to-the-top-10-common-types-of-cybersecurity-attacks.

Filed Under: Business, Tech Tagged With: communication, customer data, cybercrime, data analytics, data privacy, data protection, marketing, Security, Social Media, technology

July 22, 2022

How User Experience Impacts Cyber Security

Make it look good and make it work

There are many reasons that cyber security plans fall short in the workplace. When dealing with bad actors, nearly everything can be a pitfall in some respect or another. That means that every advantage you can create in your favor is crucial in the fight against security breaches—one of the most unassuming proponents of poor cyber security practices is user experience design. The world of design often operates in the background. When it’s good, we don’t notice. When it’s bad, we notice it right away. How does poor user experience design impact cyber security practices in the workplace? What can we do to change that to create a more secure internet for all?

What is User Experience?

Broadly, user experience (UX) design is the field of design that focuses specifically on understanding how a user will interact with a product with the final goal of improving the fundamental experience of integrating it into their daily lives. It prioritizes the user’s moment-to-moment experience over the presumptions of the product designers. Good user experience is practically invisible, and it takes teams of highly proficient people to create a system that feels natural and easy to use[1].

UX designers focus on three basic questions when designing product interfaces:

  • How does the user interact with this product?
  • How can we empathically solve the problems our product presents?
  • What underlying assumptions or objectives do we need to understand in order to meet our user’s needs?

We care about solid user experience design because it’s the only way you can ensure a product is used to its maximum potential. It is well understood that people will often take the easiest path to their goals. Daniel Kahneman and his book, Thinking Fast and Slow[2] explores the ways in which our brains optimize our cognitive loads by constantly taking shortcuts throughout the day. This, unfortunately, leads to corner cutting in many circumstances, many of these corners we don’t realize we’re cutting. UX designers understand the corner cutting we are primed to engage in and design product interfaces that reduce the maximum amount of friction wherever possible.

We can use something less abstract than cyber security tools to think about how UX touches our lives and reduces feature friction. The locks on our homes are simple to use. A key and lock mechanism is the only thing standing in between us and home security. We can easily imagine a world where this is not the case. If we move the keyhole down to the very bottom of the door or create a locking mechanism that requires multiple steps to engage, the sheer frustration of entering and exiting our homes would lead us to disregard the utility of our deadbolt.

This principle is one of the myriad reasons cyber security tools are left by the wayside in the workplace. Employees and business owners understand how important it is to secure shared drives. They keep our passwords private and lock their desktops when they leave for lunch. The security breakdown tends to arise when obstacles stand in between employees and the work they need to do[5]. 

Costly social engineering breaches that poke holes in the security plans of corporate giants like Verizon or MGM happen simply because their security plans had so many steps that sidestepping them entirely was the quickest way to get the job done[3]. High-stress work environments and shrinking workforces contribute to costly corner cutting. Still, poorly designed cyber security solutions are among the most significant contributors to this rash of security breaches.

Complicated verification processes must take place behind the scenes, and we should strive to make security as straightforward as possible on the front end. Without the right user experience, the tools we use to protect ourselves simply fizzle out before they have the opportunity to protect our workplaces.

AXEL Go and User Experience

We understand how important user experience is in the cyber security battle. That’s why our file sharing service and all of our features are easy to access, clearly labeled, and simple to implement. The clean design of our application and the streamlined storage and sharing process is a nice secondary benefit to focusing on user experience. Still, primarily it is done to ensure our users and their businesses may enjoy the robust end-to-end encryption we provide[6].

Features like our secure fetch that may be unfamiliar to workplaces that have never had the opportunity to use such a tool have been streamlined for ease of use. Our secure fetch is a method for retrieving a file in full (including unaltered metadata) from a client by generating a secure, password-protected link. Once this has been shared, no tech savvy needs to be employed to enjoy the fully encrypted document retrieval. We do the heavy lifting and keep it behind the scenes to reduce the cognitive load for each party involved.

Our goal when providing you with a private, secure, and personalized storage solution is to protect you and your business online. By understanding how user experience design affects this, we have removed the barriers between the user and innovative security solutions. We took the time to build robust, decentralized server structures with the express desire to protect our users against some of the most sophisticated cyber-attacks. Still, all of the work put into our blockchain-backed security would go to waste if our application was confusing or difficult to use.

Protect Your Business With AXEL Go

AXEL Go is a file storage and sharing service designed to revolutionize how we think about security online. Our user experience design is focused on handing top-of-the-line security to any business of any size. Our AES-256 bit encryption and decentralized server structure thwart cyber attacks on big businesses as competently as it protects local operations. No matter how tight the budget for your practice may be, we are the perfect fit for secure, intuitive storage file sharing. You can try AXEL Go premium for free for 14 days. See what security backed by our $10,000 guarantee can do for your business.


Citations

[1] The Interaction Design Foundation. 2022. What is User Experience (UX) Design?. [online] Available at: <https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/ux-design> [Accessed 21 July 2022].

[2] Kahneman, D. and Egan, P., 2011. Thinking, fast and slow. 

[3] Xda-developers.com. 2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.xda-developers.com/verizon-data-breach-employees-data/> [Accessed 21 July 2022].

[4] Allage, A., 2022. Council Post: Why Employees Violate Cybersecurity Policies. [online] Forbes. Available at: <https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/07/11/why-employees-violate-cybersecurity-policies/?sh=2b4517871d98> [Accessed 21 July 2022]. 

[5] Securitymagazine.com. 2022. | Security Magazine. [online] Available at: <https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/94909-the-evolving-role-of-user-experience-in-security> [Accessed 21 July 2022].

Filed Under: Business, Tech Tagged With: communication, customer data, cybercrime, data analytics, data privacy, data protection, marketing, Security, Social Media, technology

July 15, 2022

Protecting your Privacy With End-to-End Encryption

Encryption has stood the test of time. Make it work for you.

On the internet, we have a duty to keep our data safe, secure, and private. Encryption is our strongest tool in that fight, but what exactly is encryption? What does it do to keep our data secure? How does that look different for the military and the civilian? 


What is Encryption?

Encryption finds its roots in the field of cryptography. The process of writing and solving coded messages became the foundation upon which modern encryption was built. In ancient history, the Roman used simple substitution ciphers by simply shifting their messages down a few letters, these days, you can find a substitution cipher in a children’s puzzle book, but for the time, this was considered one of the premier methods of protecting your data in transmission. As history progressed, we developed more sophisticated versions of effectively the same thing. 

Most famously, we used machines to develop and decode encrypted messages in World War II. Machines with turning drums would take an input, shift the output internally, and create complicated, coded messages that were simple to decode once given the proper information. The Germans used a more complex machine with more drums to create messages that were more difficult to decipher, and the Allies fought back by working tirelessly to crack their codes. We can think of Alan Turing and his code-cracking machine as the beginning of modern-day encryption. In fact, there are many similarities between early analog encryption and the complicated processes that our phones use today.

In the modern day, we encrypt data in a similar, more sophisticated manner. Because information on computers must be transmitted in a precise manner, any slight shift to the data being transmitted will transform it into expensive gibberish that neither machine nor man can translate. Data encryption takes advantage of this by creating keys on either end of a line of communication to which only the authorized devices have access. The encrypted information is then scrambled in a unique fashion and only reconstructed when the proper key is slotted into the data. An encryption key is generally as simple as a string of common characters, but the mechanical beauty lies in the sheer number of possible combinations. Well done encryption will be entirely unparsable by any person or machine without the proper key, and faking one, even with the most powerful devices we have on the market right now, would take a shockingly impractical amount of time.

Our Encryption 

AXEL Go uses what is called AES 256-bit encryption. This military-grade encryption method was first developed in 2002 to bolster the cybersecurity of the most well-funded military on the planet. This means that this encryption standard was developed with some of the best resources money could buy and scrutinized by some of the most privacy-minded people. 

Before AES-256 bit encryption hit the scene, federal agencies were the Data Encryption Standard (DES). DES as an encryption standard was a 56-bit monster for quite some time, but eventually, computing power became so cheap and accessible that DES could no longer keep up. A single person with a suitable machine could crack a document encrypted with DES 56-bit in less than a day by the 1990s with brute force alone.

AES 256-bit encryption stands on the shoulders of encryption methods that stood before it. AES 256-bit is a symmetric key cipher. This means that the same key is generated on either end of the transfer. The data encrypted by the AES algorithm is broken up into several “blocks,” and each of those blocks is replaced with encrypted data decided upon by the encryption key. Once the data is rendered unrecognizable, it can only be reverted into a readable format by the proper key. The encryption process is performed in several different “rounds,” and the number of rounds of data replacement that have taken place before the data is considered sufficiently encrypted. AES 256-bit encryption is the most thorough iteration of AES encryption, and it has the backing of the NSA and protects many of the organization’s top secrets. It’s robust enough for the military, and bringing that technology to civilians in an easy-to-use format is the least we can do for the digital security of all.

How Does Encryption Protect You?

In the simplest terms, encryption protects us in the digital world by creating barriers to entry for everyone but yourself. When data is encrypted, you become the only person with the key to an incredibly complicated lock. Once the tools are in place, end-to-end encryption does the hard work of scrambling and reconstructing your data without any additional input on your part. 

An unfortunate aspect of modern-day privacy legislation is the tendency to pull back your protections in times of strife. A typical legislative response to international disasters, times of war, or changes in federal protection is to lean on the human tendency to seek protection. That reflex often materializes in the law as privacy overreach. Our doorbells, cell phones, and air conditioning control modules can keep track of our positions and habits, and that information can be turned over to third parties without us having a say in the matter.

When we talk about using encryption as a tool to protect yourself or your business in the modern world, the primary reason for this is to keep your data out of the hands of bad actors. Ransomware attacks have brought massive industries to a screeching halt. For instance, the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack is the perfect example of how we can lose out on millions of dollars in business, inconvenience hundreds of thousands of people, and shake our trust in our infrastructure. Hackers and other bad actors will always be the primary threat that encryption aims to fend off, but it is essential to understand that end-to-end encryption is a tool with many functions.

We encrypt data, not just because it keeps bad actors out, but because people have a fundamental right to privacy that is easily eroded if left unprotected. By going out of the way to create robust, secure protections of our privacy before the right to do so is challenged, we create a space online that is secure and belongs to you alone.

Embrace Your Right to Privacy

.AXEL Go is a file storage and sharing service designed to revolutionize how we think about security online. Our user experience design is focused on handing top-of-the-line security to any business of any size. Our AES-256 bit encryption and decentralized server structure thwart cyber attacks on big businesses as competently as it protects local operations. No matter how tight the budget for your practice may be, we are the perfect fit for secure, intuitive storage file sharing. You can try AXEL Go premium for free for 14 days. See what security backed by our $10,000 guarantee can do for your business.


Sources

“Advanced Encryption Standard: Understanding AES 256 | N-Able”. 2022. N-Able. https://www.n-able.com/blog/aes-256-encryption-algorithm.

Lily Hay Newman, wired.com. 2022. “End-To-End Encryption’S Central Role In Modern Self-Defense.” Ars Technica. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/07/end-to-end-encryptions-central-role-in-modern-self-defense/.

“Law Enforcement Access To Smart Devices.” 2022. Brennan Center For Justice. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/law-enforcement-access-smart-devices.

Filed Under: Business, Tech Tagged With: communication, customer data, cybercrime, data analytics, data privacy, data protection, marketing, Security, Social Media, technology

  • Go to page 1
  • Go to page 2
  • Go to page 3
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 26
  • Go to Next Page »

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • AXEL News Update
  • AXEL Events
  • Why IPFS is the Future of Internet Storage Systems
  • Protecting the workplace from Day 1 Exploits
  • How User Experience Impacts Cyber Security
  • Protecting your Privacy With End-to-End Encryption
  • Devastating Hospital Hacks
  • The Dangers of Leftover Attachments
  • How Secure Are Your Apps, really?
  • ABA GPsolo Roundtable Roundup
  • Our Continued Loss of Privacy
  • Casting a Shadow of Protection
  • Why Digital Sharding is the Future of File Storage
  • The Practical Applications of Web3
  • Archival With the Future in Mind
  • IPFS: Securing Our Privacy Future
  • What Do We Do About Social Engineering?
  • Five Simple Security Tricks
  • IPFS: The InterPlanetary Solution to Small Business Problems 
  • Schools: Our Cybersecurity Blindspot
  • The State of Privacy Laws in 2022
  • The Great Return (Back to the Office)
  • Artificial Intelligence is Here to Stay. How Will That Affect Businesses, Individuals, and Our Privacy?
  • Big Tech is Talking Privacy. What Does That Mean for the Future of Our Data?
  • How Technology Changed Business (And What That Means for the Future of the Industry)
  • Small Business Tech Trends of 2022
  • After the Cyberattack: What Happens to your Data Following a Breach?
  • Has School Surveillance Gone Too Far?

Recent Comments

  • Anonymous on Five Simple Security Tricks

Footer

Sitemap
© Copyright 2022 Axel ®. All Rights Reserved.
Terms & Policies
  • Telegram
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Reddit
  • LinkedIn
  • Instagram
  • Discord
  • GitHub