Data at Rest

Data at rest is data that is stored in a physical location, such as a computer's hard drive or a server and is not actively being used or moved between devices or networks. It can include both structured and unstructured data.

Examples of data at rest include Spreadsheet files on a laptop, Videos on a mobile device, Employment records in a company's HR system, and Sales information in a company's database.

Data at rest is often the most sensitive data in an organization and can be very valuable to hackers. Breaches of data at rest can have serious consequences, including Large financial losses, Damage to a company's reputation, Regulatory fines, and Civil liability.

To protect data at rest, organizations can use techniques such as:

Encryption: Makes the data indecipherable and useless to anyone who steals it using FDE (Full Disk Encryption), SED (Self-Encrypting Drives), and BitLocker.

Data tokenization: Replaces sensitive data with non-sensitive tokens that are meaningless on their own

Layered password protection: Sets access controls to data at different levels of sensitivity