A recent study found that extensive use of encryption is a top factor in reducing the business impact and cost of a data breach. To put that in context, the IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index reported that more than four billion records were leaked in

capable of running more than 12 billion encrypted transactions per day and also introduces a breakthrough encryption engine that, for the first time, makes it possible to pervasively encrypt data associated with any application, cloud service or database all the time. The system’s advanced cryptographic capability now extends across any data, networks, external devices or entire applications - such as the IBM Cloud Blockchain service - with no application changes and no impact on business service level agreements.

Building on the capabilities of the world’s most powerful transaction engine at the center of global commerce today, the IBM Z supports:

• 87 percent of all credit card transactions and nearly $8 trillion in payments a year.

• 29 billion ATM transactions each year, worth nearly $5 billion per day.

• Four billion passenger flights each year.

• More than 30 billion transactions per day, or more than the number of Google searches every day.

• 68 percent of the world's production workloads at only six percent of the total information technology (IT) cost.

Banks and others in the financial services industry process thousands of transactions per second to keep the world’s financial systems running. The mainframe is more critical than ever for reliably handling high volumes of transaction data. Today, 92 of the world’s top 100 banks rely on the IBM mainframe because of its ability to efficiently process huge volumes of transactions. Addie Buissinne, Executive for Financial Solutions at Emid, a subsidiary of EOH, says they took their retail banking and lending platform (C4) to the cloud 15 years ago, using IBM Z because it is highly efficient, scalable and offers unrivalled stability. They for example took a client from first engagement, to opening and transacting on 160,000 accounts in just a few months, and this had no impact on the performance level of the mainframe. Given the resilience of IBM Z, they have achieved uptime and stability rates unmatched by any other alternative.

My company believes that organizations should not wait to assess data risks and obligations, and instead, should proactively secure vital data. Businesses should prepare through a broad range of capabilities, which not only include technology, data governance, security and policy, but also people and processes.

Securing data should be seen as an opportunity. The process can accelerate digital transformation, if done properly, by introducing more efficient and integrated data processing.

(Biztech.com)