Scram Software Unveils ScramFS Peer-Reviewed Encryption System for Safeguarding Cloud Data

Scram Software Pty Ltd. has announced that ScramFS – an internationally peer-reviewed encryption system for safeguarding cloud data – is available to SMEs, government and not-for-profit organizations, enabling fast encryption of sensitive data to reduce breaches and assist in ensuring legal, HIPPA and GDPR compliance.

How ScramFS works

Until now, the options for encrypting data at rest have been limited and complex for organizations leaving them vulnerable and at risk. ScramFS simplifies the task of safeguarding data through transparent and automatic encryption – while delivering enterprise security that is easy to deploy for system administrators, software developers and general users.

Researched, developed and peer-reviewed over three years by a team of security experts including Dr. Ron Steinfeld, a leader in post-quantum cryptography (Monash University, Australia), and Dr. Toby Murray, a leader in software security (The University of Melbourne, Australia), ScramFS provides fully transparent client-side data encryption to help organizations bolster their cyber defences and level of GDPR compliance. Specifically, it enables organizations to implement encryption and pseudonymisation security protections (Article 32) by design and default (Article 25), while also mitigating the obligations of reporting data breaches to data subjects (Article 34).

“It is disappointing that so many businesses are still either unaware or not yet prepared for GDPR given the serious potential consequences of non-compliance,” said George Crump, founder and lead analyst, Storage Switzerland. “My advice for any business firm, regardless of size or where they are based, is to become well educated on the impending GDPR and to make the investments and take the necessary steps to ensure compliance. Exploring solutions such as Scram Software’s ScramFS is a good place to start.“

ScramFS is also designed to be long-term secure, meaning: most of today’s cryptosystems are expected to be broken by quantum computers within 15 years. But it uses only quantum-resistant techniques, so what users encrypt today will be secure for years and decades.

Cryptography has long had a reputation for being notoriously difficult or troublesome to implement, yet statistics show that security improves when IT professionals have quality tools and documentation showing them exactly how to perform specific tasks. With this in mind, Scram Software has created an ‘encryption cookbook’ for ScramFS, enabling system administrators and DevOps engineers to follow ‘recipes’ for protecting many types of data, from encrypting a WordPress website backup, for example, to the encryption of a MySQL or SQL Server backup.

ScramFS also features a simple API that allows software developers to add encryption into their applications, delivering secure systems by design and default by encrypting data early, thereby mitigating the possible effects of future breaches or lapses in security.

“Unfortunately, the world is experiencing an epidemic of data breaches. And, the problem seems to only be getting worse – pointing to some serious problems with IT security,” said Linus Chang, CEO and founder, Scram Software. “For SMEs and non-profit organizations that are often struggling with limited IT staff and budget, these challenges are continuously exacerbated by ever increasing stores of data that must be protected, spread across various devices and geographies. Add to that, the pressures from increasingly stringent legal regulations, HIPAA compliance and the impending GDPR.”

He continued: “ScramFS delivers an encryption toolkit designed to counteract these problems and dramatically improve information security, by empowering system administrators and software developers to encrypt sensitive data quickly and easily, thus making data files unintelligible to hackers and other unauthorized persons. With GDPR compliance becoming enforceable in just 100 days’ time, our ScramFS encryption cookbook is a quick and easy reference that helps organizations to secure their data in a hurry and with minimal effort.“

ScramFS is a software layer that encrypts data as it gets saved to storage, either locally or in the cloud (including Dropbox and Google Drive). Encryption is done transparently and automatically, which ensures uninterrupted user productivity and means that human intervention is not relied upon. In addition, because encryption is performed on the client device only, no plaintext leaves the client. This safeguards the privacy and integrity of data against untrusted, compromised or even maliciously hostile cloud providers.

Pricing and availability

• SMEs can trial ScramFS for 30 days before making a purchase.

• Volume-based subscriptions start at $499 p.a. for the first 50GB of primary data under protection, with uncapped per-server licensing options also available.

• Nonprofit organizations can benefit from a 50% discount on the purchase price until May 25, 2018.