Zettaset Achieves New Patent for Format-Preserving Encryption

New Patented Approach Is Optimized for Scale in Big Data Environments, Speeds up Format-Preserving Encryption Process and Simplifies Implementation


MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA--(Marketwired - Apr 26, 2016) - Zettaset, the leader in Big Data security, is pleased to announce that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has granted the company a new patent of strategic importance to data privacy and protection for large scale on-premises and cloud database environments. This is the fifth patent the company has received.

The patent (No. 9,313,023) addresses format-preserving encryption (FPE) including an encryption and decryption scheme that allows the selection of portions of data from a potentially larger dataset to be encrypted. The cipher advantageously embodies the encryption and decryption of multi-byte values or strings of data, thus fitting a variety of business applications.

Format-preserving encryption ensures that the output (ciphertext) is in the same format as the input (plaintext). While FPE itself is not new, until now this encryption method has not been optimized to meet the performance challenges of today's high volume, petabyte-scale Big Data environments. The Zettaset patent addresses these limitations.

The technology in the Zettaset patent for format-preserving encryption has several advantages over existing FPE implementations, including the latest techniques adopted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

  • The Zettaset patented FPE technology can take advantage of AES-NI (the Advanced Encryption Standard instruction set for Intel and AMD microprocessors), making it much faster than NIST FPE. The NIST method uses a custom unbalanced Feistel network that is slower than the Zettaset method.
  • The Zettaset method wastes very little of the AES keystream, adding to its efficiency when encrypting large volumes of data. The NIST method uses cycle-walking that can require multiple AES calls for each byte resulting in impaired encryption performance. 
  • The Zettaset method is easier to implement, using common cryptographic primitives and requiring no custom Feistel implementation. As a rule, simpler algorithms are less likely to have implementation errors in a production environment, making them intrinsically more reliable for deployment.

"As organizations expand beyond on-premises data storage to the cloud, the need for data-centric solutions like encryption becomes even more critical," said Jim Vogt, Zettaset CEO. "In the brave new world of Big Data, scalability and performance must go hand-in-hand. The relentless increase in data volume requires new security methods and technologies optimized for the distributed computing infrastructures that are the foundation of all cloud services. These market dynamics and customer needs continue to drive our technology development at Zettaset."

About Zettaset

Zettaset, the leader in Big Data security, is an ISV that provides proven enterprise-class data privacy and protection for Hadoop, other NoSQL, and Relational database environments: on-premises and in the cloud. Unlike traditional security approaches, Zettaset data protection solutions are designed and performance-optimized for today's complex and demanding distributed-computing architectures. Enterprise customers can rely on Zettaset to provide advanced Big Data security solutions that deliver high performance and scalability, while easily fitting into existing enterprise IT security and policy frameworks. Visit us at www.zettaset.com

Company ProfileZettaset, Inc