IDC Research Paper Looks at Ensuringand Proving Big Data is Tamper-Free "Data Integrity in the Big Data Digital

Age" gives data its proof in court. San Francisco, CA (USA), Wednesday - April 18th, 2012 -- A new executive brief p ublished by IDC examines one of the major obstacles organizations face when comm itting resources and applications to cloud computing. At stake is the issue of v alidating the integrity and authenticity of data within a cloud environment. "When the data is hosted onsite, this process of data integrity can certainly be a challenge. However, when data is not hosted within the traditional internal I T data center environment, there needs to be a method of ensuring indisputable d ata integrity," cites the report. Titled "Data Integrity in the Big Data Digital Age", the research paper ties the current Big Data phenomenon with cloud computing, making a case for how organiz ations must grapple with analyzing and basing decisions on petabytes of unstruct ured data, yet rarely questioning the authenticity of this data. Questions the report seeks to answer include: Has my data been tampered with? Is the data source legitimate? How can indisputable proof be offered that data int egrity remains intact? And in cases that involve the legal system, how to bring documents, log files, or audio files to the level where they can be admitted as irrefutable evidence? These questions take the data integrity argument well beyond the premise and per imeter of IT security matters. Few options exist today that can achieve tamper-p roof data security outside of the reliance on third-party certification authorit ies, or the unwieldy management of a public key infrastructure. What s required is a way to validate, verify, and self-authenticate the data independently of any th ird-party agency. Sponsored by GuardTime, ( http://www.guardtime.com ) the executive brief details a compelling case for the adoption of Keyless Signatures, explaining how the ma thematically-driven system works. The Keyless Signature technology is used to pr ovide indisputable proof of time, origin, and integrity for electronic data. "The goal of the keyless signature technology is to provide mass-scale, non-expi ring data validation while eliminating the need for secrets or other forms of tr ust, thereby reducing or even eliminating the need for more complex certificatebased solutions, as these are ripe with certificate management issues, including expiration and revocation," the paper explains. "A keyless signature provides an alternative method to key-based technologies by providing proof and non-repudiation of electronic data using only hash function s for verification. The implementation of keyless signature is done via a global ly distributed machine, taking hash values of data as inputs and returning keyle ss signatures that prove the time, integrity, and origin (machine, organization, individual) of the input data." "Any client using the keyless signature service can make a request to sign any d ata item it has access to; a log file, XML file, office document, database recor d, SWIFT transaction, FPML message, eDiscovery productions, etc. In return, the client will receive a keyless signature which can be stored along side the signe d data, within the signed data, or in a repository separate from the signed data for backup and archival purposes." By signing the data using GuardTime s Keyless Signatures ( http://www.guardtime.com ), an organization can automatically detect when and where the data was created or transferred, and if the data has been tampered with or not. An alert is sent

to the customer when an abnormal status is detected. In this manner, organizations can assure the integrity of data and confirm the l ocation where data exists, providing a full audit trail of data usage and storag e in the Cloud. The report concludes with "The keyless nature of this technology helps reduce th e footprint by removing the need for cipher keys and passwords, which arguably c an also be lost or mislaid, and since the integrity can be validated by the docu ment owners, the ability to leverage the cloud computing platform places it well for future adoption." The full report can be found here: http://www.guardtime.com/whitepapers About GuardTime: GuardTime was founded with the goal of solving one of the biggest problems in co mputing: how to be sure electronic data is authentic. GuardTime's Keyless Signat ures provide proof of origin and that not a single bit of the data has changed s ince a specific point in time. The verification of the signatures can be done of fline without reliance on keys, secrets, or the existence of a trusted third par ty. GuardTime's mission is to change the world to one in which Keyless Signature s are ubiquitous and a natural part of the everyday data lifecycle, whether on d isk, in transit, or in the Cloud. The company was recently selected as co-winner of the Innotribe $100K Start-Up Challenge, honoring the company as one of the w orld's most promising financial technology start-ups. Visit http://www.guardtime .com for more information about using Keyless Signatures for signing your data. Press & Media Contact: Victor Cruz, Principal MediaPR.net Inc San Francisco, CA - USA +1 978-594-4134 vcruz@mediapr.net http://www.guardtime.com