FAQs: Privacy

Q: Does microsharding tokenize or pseudonymize data?

No. Our microsharding process protects entire data sets, so we don’t try to understand what a sensitive piece of information is and what isn’t. We microshard it all.

Please see our microsharding FAQ for the technical details.

Q: Can a third party reconstruct my data using their own installation of ShardSecure?

No. Each installation of our solution is unique and dynamic. It is not possible for a third part to install ShardSecure and reassemble another organization’s data, even if the third party has that organization’s complete Microshard data set.

Q: Is it possible for an attacker to monitor network traffic long enough to learn ShardSecure’s algorithm?

No. Each time data is saved the arrangement of microshards is different as well as how the microshards and poison data are mixed with each other and across the Microshard containers.

Q: Can ShardSecure access my data?

No. We use storage that you control to store your Microshard data. We do not provide any kind of storage.

Think of us as a storage abstraction layer through which data passes. We microshard data as we receive it from customer applications and then distribute the Microshard data to customer-owned storage locations. When a user accesses a file through an application, we reverse the microsharding process to reassemble that data and return it to the application.

Q: Can ShardSecure access my keys?

No. Microsharding doesn’t have the concept of a key, so there is no key to access. We do use encryption to protect one core component within our solution, and you generate and control that key. We have no way of accessing it.

Q: I want to ensure that no cloud provider has my complete data. How can I do that?

Even if an unauthorized user had all of your Microshard data, it would still be virtually impossible for them to reconstruct your data. But that doesn’t answer the question. Where we support hybrid cloud environments, simply assign at least one storage location to your on-premises storage. This ensures at least 1/x of your data is missing if all of your Microshard data in the public cloud were accessible.