Encryption is often taken as last line of defense and organizations are using encryption to secure their data. Understanding and adopting the latest encryption technologies is crucial for keeping data secure. In current scenario when attackers are equally lazed with latest technologies, companies can strengthen their cybersecurity strategies and continue to adapt encryption as last line of their defense. When organizations enhance their encryption practices today, they can protect their digital assets for the future.

As cyber attacks are evolving so as encryption advances. Now numerous key developments will shape the future of cybersecurity. Once inside the network, cyber criminals can easily view and steal sensitive data. If that data is encrypted, they have no way of accessing it without a decryption key, saving the data from being compromised.

For example, the continuous evolution of quantum computing presents challenges and opportunities for encryption. Quantum-resistant algorithms must increase in speed to enhance security against quantum attacks.

The FinWise Data Breach a Stark Example

On May 31, 2024, the ex-employee accessed FinWise Bank’s systems after leaving the company and leaked sensitive personal information belonging to 689,000 customers of American First Finance (AFF). Even more alarming, this unauthorized access went undetected for more than a year before being discovered by the bank on June 18, 2025.

The FinWise Data breach revealed lapses like time gap between the initial breach and its discovery. The Bank came to understand about the incident and notified affected customers in June 2025 which was over a year after the breach occurred. This was a huge time gap and lawsuits allege that the stolen data may not have been adequately encrypted and secured, causing public criticism and concern.

Security experts emphasize that a well-designed information protection framework must not only encrypt critical financial data but also proactively detect and prevent abnormal access attempts.

Quantum computing & Encryption

Organizations who relies on encryption to keep its critical business communications and data safe are secure now. But as per RAND, experts expect quantum computers capable of breaking today’s encryption standards to arrive by the 2030sOpens a new window .

In the latest updates The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sent letters to major tech companies in the United States, urging them to resist foreign governments’ demands to weaken encryption. 

The letters were sent by FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson to Akamai, Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Cloudflare, Discord, GoDaddy, Meta, Microsoft, Signal, Snap, Slack, and X.

Traditional encryption relies on math problems that would take classical computers centuries to solve. RSA encryption, which protects much of today’s internet traffic, works because factoring massive numbers is impossibly hard for regular computers. But tomorrow’s computers will make quick work of it. According to the MIT Technology Review, researchers have shown that a quantum computer with 20 million noisy qubits could crack RSA-2048 in just 8 hoursOpens a new window .

The question is Encryption alone is sufficient to protect data

As per researchers Encryption alone is no longer sufficient to protect privacy in LLM interactions, as metadata patterns can be exploited to infer sensitive subjects and corporate intent. Researchers at Microsoft have revealed a new side channel attack named Whisper Leak that can reveal the topic of encrypted conversations between users and language models, even without access to the underlying text.

The discovery highlights a growing blind spot in AI security where encryption alone no longer guarantees privacy in model interactions.

What we must know about Whisper Leak the side channel attack

Whisper Leak exploits often exploits a side channel in network communication rather than a flaw in encryption itself. LLM services generate responses step by step, by producing one token at a time instead of the entire response at once. Also, the communications with AI-powered chatbots are often encrypted with HPPS over TLS (HTTPS), ensuring the authenticity of the server and security through encryption.

A side channel attack breaks cryptography by using information leaked by cryptography, such as monitoring the electromagnetic field (EMF) radiation emitted by a computer screen to view information before it’s encrypted in a van Eck phreaking attack, aka Transient Electromagnetic Pulse Emanation STandard (TEMPEST). 

Encryption the last line in defense & Helps Orgs Embrace GDPR

If sensitive information is no longer required, the best way to protect it is to delete it. However, when files are deleted from a hard drive they leave traces that can be reconstructed by thieves and hackers. By encrypting the files before deletion, the remnants that remain on the drive will remain encrypted and remain inaccessible should they be reconstructed. In this way, encryption protects your privacy, even when the files are gone.

Companies should, therefore, ensure that all devices leaving the workplace are encrypted. Most phones have a native encryption option that can be easily activated, while laptops can have either their hard drives or sensitive data encrypted depending on the tools an organization wants to use.

Nowadays data protection is no longer an option. Companies can’t ignore the problem and hope they won’t be targeted by malicious threat actors.

GDPR itself recommends encryption as an effective tool for data protection as do data protection standards such as the CIS Controls which advocate a data security strategy based on a combination of encryption, integrity protection and data loss prevention techniques.

At the end Encryption ensures that, whether these devices are lost, stolen or forgotten, the data on them is useless to anyone who tries to access it without a decryption key.

(Source: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/finwise-data-breach-shows-why-encryption-is-your-last-defense/)

Sources: https://www.csoonline.com/