Tozny Launches InnoVault - Encryption Toolkit For Developers

We are proud to announce the release of our latest product, InnoVault - a toolkit that enables developers building websites, apps, and other software to easily embed end-to-end encryption for data security and privacy. 2016 saw a 40% increase in data breaches over 2015, and the team here at Tozny decided we wanted to do something about it. InnoVault is our answer to protecting user data with the same type of robust measures already used for credit cards, but too often left off of other user data.

Tozny at the Cloud Identity Summit and the Design Automation Conference

Tozny’s CEO, Isaac Potoczny-Jones, will be presenting at Cloud Identity Summit (CIS) in Chicago on June 19, 2017.  Come learn about E3DB, a security toolkit to build privacy-preserving products from the ground-up.

Talk Abstract: On the modern Internet, securely collecting personal data is extremely challenging. Software developers and enterprises are losing the arms race against malicious attackers every day. The Internet of Things (IoT) adds new challenges, including hardware limitations, lack of upgrade paths, and control of physical systems. In this talk, Isaac will outline Tozny's work with NIST on E3DB, a security toolkit to build privacy-preserving products from the ground-up.

The Design Automation Conference is in Austin - Isaac will be participating in a panel discussion on June 20, 2017 on hardware security technologies.

Panel Summary: Hardware security schemes are often treated as an afterthought: an extension of the system but not an inherent design metric for the whole system. This limits their adoption and benefit to real-world architectures. Emerging applications, for instance in IoT area, increasingly involve large numbers of connected and heterogeneous device swarms and pose crucial challenges on the underlying security architectures. In the recent years we have seen hardware security solutions from Trusted Platform Modules (TPM), ARM's TrustZone, to Intel's SGX, to name some have been rolled out. However, these solutions are rarely used by user applications, require strong trust assumptions in manufacturers, are too expensive for small constrained devices, and not scalable. This panel will discuss the real-world impact of currently available security hardware, the related shortcomings as well as new research and development directions in hardware-assisted security and privacy solutions.

Are you heading to CIS or DAC? Contact Isaac to meet up! @SyntaxPolice Top image credit: User BitchBuzz, Creative Commons

Tozny at HCSS - High Confidence Software and Systems

Tozny's CEO, Isaac Potoczny-Jones, will be presenting at the High Confidence Software and Systems Conference (HCSS) on May 9, 2017.  Come learn about NIST's Risk Management Framework and how you can apply it to your work.  And if you happen to be out in Annapolis, meet up with Isaac at the conference! @SyntaxPolice

Applying NIST's New Privacy Risk Management Framework (Abstract)

NIST’s influential cybersecurity frameworks have been a cornerstone of the certification process. They provide methodologies and standards to help organizations rigorously analyze the security of their systems. These standards are an important step in clarifying the policy, technical, and mental models that can lead to formal and semi-formal implementations. Building on the impact of the Risk Management Frameworks for cybersecurity, NIST is developing a Privacy Risk Management Framework. Rather than emphasizing the classic cybersecurity triad of Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability it contributes the core privacy principles of Predictability, Manageability, and Disassociability. According to NISTIR 8062:

• Predictability is the enabling of reliable assumptions by individuals, owners, and operators about personal information and its processing by an information system.
• Manageability is providing the capability for granular administration of personal information including alteration, deletion, and selective disclosure.
• Disassociability is enabling the processing of personal information or events without association to individuals or devices beyond the operational requirements of the system.

Tozny is implementing an End-to-End Encrypted DataBase (E3DB) for any type of mobile or web application to build secure workflows into their systems. It is a type of Personal Data Service (PDS). A PDS is designed to give end users significant control over the collection, retention, and sharing of their personal data. This approach improves privacy by inverting the model where data brokers control user data and choose which 3rd parties access user data. E3DB is one of the first projects implemented using NIST’s new privacy frameworks. In this talk, we will provide:

• An overview of NIST’s Privacy Framework, and related standards (800-53, 800-63),
• An experience report on implementing a product based on these standards, and
• An in-depth review of our cryptographic approach and how it supports privacy.