Data at rest refers to the state of information when it is stored, such as on a hard drive or cloud storage. This data is not being transferred or used at the moment. It remains static until accessed or modified.

Example of data at rest

John wants to listen to a song on his Spotify. When the app is not in use, John’s playlists, cached songs and account preferences are data at rest. All this information is static on Spotify’s servers.

When John opens the app to play a song, this interaction is sent to the Spotify servers, becoming data in motion. The server then responds with the song data to be streamed. When the song plays, it becomes data in use.

Characteristics of data at rest

Formats

· Structured data: This refers to organized, formatted data with defined relationships, such as within relational databases and spreadsheets.

· Unstructured data: This data does not have a predefined format. It includes text, email, image and multimedia files stored in its native format.

Locations

· On-premises servers: Servers located within an organization’s infrastructure.

· Cloud: Cloud-based storage such as Amazon S3, Google Cloud or iCloud.

· External devices: USB drives, hard drives and network-attached storage (NAS) devices.

Storage Devices

· HDDs and SSDs: Hard disk drives and solid-state disks used by computers to store and access non-volatile data.

· Tape storage: Primarily used as archival storage for backup data.

· NVMe and UFS: Non-volatile memory express (NVMe) is the flash memory storage used in devices such as iPhones, while universal flash memory (UFS) is typically used in Android devices.

· Optical disks: Although now obsolete, these include CD-ROMs, Blu-ray discs and DVDs.

Threats to data at rest

· Losing physical media: Loss of physical storage devices, such as USBs, exposes sensitive data to unauthorized individuals.

· Data breach: Cyber attacks, hacking and exploiting software vulnerabilities to gain access to confidential stored data.

· Insider threat: Organization individuals who misuse their access privileges to compromise data security.

· Damage to storage media: Physical damage to storage media, such as SSDs, can result in lost or corrupted data.

Protection mechanisms

· Encryption: Encoding stored data, only allowing access to authorized users with the correct decryption key.

· Access controls: Implementing authentication mechanisms and role-based access control (RBAC) to ensure that only authorized users can access and modify sensitive data.

· Data masking: Replacing sensitive data with anonymized data while preserving its format and usability.

· Monitoring and audit: Logging access events, analyzing logs for anomalies and conducting periodic security audits to detect and mitigate unauthorized access attempts.

Challenges in protecting data at rest

· Balancing accessibility and security: Balancing the need for easy data access with the imperative to uphold robust security measures presents a constant challenge.

· Managing encryption keys: Effectively managing the generation, storage, rotation and distribution of encryption keys poses many issues in ensuring data security at rest.

· Adapting to evolving threats: Needing to continually update data protection strategies and technologies to effectively safeguard data at rest.

*Disclaimer: This content does not constitute legal advice. The suitability, enforceability or admissibility of electronic documents will likely depend on many factors such as the country or state where you operate, the country or state where the electronic document will be distributed as well as the type of electronic document involved. Appropriate legal counsel should be consulted to analyze any potential legal implications and questions related to the use of electronic documents.