Glossary

Scalability

The ability of a computer application, product (hardware or software) or service to continue to perform as expected when its context is changed in size or volume in order to meet increasing user needs. A truly scalable system should not only function well in the rescaled situation, but should actually take full advantage of the larger operating environment, in terms of increased performance and task optimization.

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Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a widely-used protocol for managing the security of a message transmission over the public Internet. Here, the "sockets" part of the term refers to the particular method of passing data back and forth between a client and a server in a network or between program layers in the same computer. SSL uses the encryption system from RSA, and in the e-Capsule™ system the size of the public-and-private key pairs used to encrypt the message before transporting it across the network is at least 1024-bit long.

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Secure View

Very sensitive files stored on the secure e-Capsule™ Repository should be downloaded only when absolutely necessary. However, from time to time it might be necessary for the owners to view or share with customers or collaborators the contents of a sensitive file. The e-Capsule™ browser Secure View functionality allows users to inspect the content of sensitive files without requiring any local physical storage operation. Choosing Secure View on a file selected from the remote repository list will activate the file's download and storage on a secure memory buffer allocated from the local computer's available RAM. Once the file is displayed on the screen of the client computer, and after the user exits the Secure View interface, the memory buffer is e-Shredded and released for further use. Current version of the e-Capsule™ Explorer allows to Secure View files stored on the repository in .jpg, .bmp, .gif, .pdf, .txt and .rtf formats.

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Security

The security of modern cryptosystems rests in the key and not in the details of the algorithms, which are made publicly available for the purpose of allowing the cryptographers’ community to carefully scrutinize them in detail to search for possible weak points. The best cryptosystems – such as AES and RSA - are those that are so secure that the best way to attack them is to attempt what is called a brute force attack, i.e. to try every possible key. However, current key sizes make the complexity of such a brute force attack beyond the reach of even today’s most powerful supercomputers (one can easily estimate that a brute force attack on a 128-bit key would take over 10^15 years, a time well over the estimated age of the universe!).

However, this should not induce the user to believe that security is assured by the simple fact that brute force attacks are made impractical given a long enough encryption keys. In fact, security is more often compromised by a user’s careless behavior or a security application’s weak design, which can defeat even the best cryptosystems.

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Security Rating

Information of different value and type needs to be secured in different ways. Therefore, a classification system is often applied, whereby information is classified and a policy is laid down on how to handle it according to its class. Security is then coherently enforced throughout all the information's lifetime according to the rules specified by its rating.

The e-Capsule™ system allows users to manage information according to a five level security grading scale and criteria: Confidential, Sensitive, Restriced, Secret and Top Secret. However, such classification is not rigid and forced upon the user, who can also decide to operate always at the lowest security level (Confidential).

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Signing key pair

Consists of a privately held key for signing data and a key distributed publicly so others can verify the signature.

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Symmetric key

One key that can be used to encrypt and decrypt the same data. Symmetric key encryption is different from public key encryption, which relies on one key held privately (for signing or decryption) and a second key distributed to the public (for signature verification or encryption).