Personal data, which is any information that relates to an identified or identifiable living individual, is the single most important piece of information about oneself. According to Social Media Today, “Over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every single day, and it’s only going to grow from there. By 2020, it’s estimated that 1.7MB of data will be created every second for every person on earth.”
Allowing cookies, signing up on websites, giving your information online, subscribing to newspapers, are all ways through which you allow your data to be used by a third party. Data leaks happen even to giants like Facebook, Uber, Google, Yahoo, JP.Morgan, hence it is safe to say that there is a 99% chance of your data getting leaked and seen by a third party, without your consent. However, Zero Knowledge Proof or rather ZKP, makes up that 1%.
What is ZKP and how it keeps your information impenetrable, explained below.
Cybersecurity practices
Some of the most common cybersecurity practices that companies use to protect your confidential information are:
- End-to-End Encryption and Two-Steps Verification Sign-in Processes
- Utilizing Cloud Storage Infrastructure
- Identity and Access Management (IAM) which tracks which employees had access to your data
- Unified Threat Management (UTM) which detects and mitigates threats as they come in
However, the single most important cyber security solution that a lot of companies are missing is the Zero Knowledge Proof.
Zero Knowledge Proof
ZKP or Zero Knowledge Proof is an advanced encryption technology that ensures that no one can access your data as it validates data without sharing it to a third party. ZKP employs cryptographic algorithms that enable multiple parties to verify the accuracy of a given information without exposing the data that demonstrates it.
Companies that employ ZKP systems are to be trusted more than companies that use users passwords as a way to protect users data. As users become more aware of how their data is used and for which purposes, they become more and more sensitive to giving out their data. However, ZKP diminishes this problem as it ensures that there is no breach of customer data. No government, hacker, or insider can access users data.
Stornest keeps your information confidential by employing ZKP
At Stornest, we know how important it is for you to be confident that none of your information is seen or used by a third party. Stornest ensures that all your information is validated without having to view the information. Hence the reason why we use ZKP as an additional cyber security level – it ensures that no one but yourself can access your confidential information. How do we do that?
- Stornest and the third party provider hold a part of your decryption key – only you have the access to your entire decryption key. Your part of the master encryption key is sent to you via email. Hence, Stornest does not have access to your full data.
- Your uploaded information goes directly to Amazon Web Services which is believed to be the world’s most trusted cloud storage system.
- When data sharing is triggered, beneficiaries receive a code via email, SMS or phone call. We only share your information if and when the time comes. Your appointed beneficiaries will not be able to access your documents before that time.
- Once the beneficiaries download their information, your account will be deleted and closed which means that we do not store any of your information afterward.
Using ZKP as a cybersecurity tool is the answer to any problems related to confidentiality and identity issues. It is the single cybersecurity practice that keeps all your information safe and sound, unobtainable, and unreadable by anyone but yourself. Stornest as a digital tool for legacy planning does exactly that. It stores your information using this unique encryption model to ensure that your data is impenetrable. With Stornest you can rest assured that all your important legacy documents are stored securely in your account.
