This month, we are thrilled to shine the spotlight on Baseel, one of our esteemed Cyber Essentials Partners.

At the ECRC, we believe in highlighting the efforts of our partners to raise awareness about their organization and the valuable work they do. Both Baseel and the ECRC share a dedication to promoting Cyber resilience within the SME community. We extend our gratitude to Deepak Dhar, Head of Presales at Baseel, for generously contributing this insightful article on Homomorphic Encryption.

Trust is a crucial factor for people and organisations to be able to use technology with confidence and integrity. Organisations across various sectors handle a lot of sensitive data that needs to be protected. Traditionally various forms of encryption have been used to ensure security and privacy of data, when in transit or at rest. But what about data being processed? Sooner or later this data needs to be decrypted for processing, leaving it exposed to the risk of comprise of confidential or sensitive information. Homomorphic encryption is a ground-breaking technology that allows the ability to work with data, retaining its confidentiality, without the need to decrypt and reveal any original data.

What is Homomorphic Encryption?

Homomorphic encryption is a powerful technique that enables operations to be carried out directly on encrypted data, without requiring any decryption in the process.   As data remains in encrypted state, security and privacy of sensitive data can be maintained, even when processing in untrusted environments.

The term “homomorphic” originates from the Greek words “homo” and “morphe” meaning same form or structure. In the context of mathematics, it means converting one data set to another but retaining the same relationships within elements in both sets. Within the context of homomorphic encryption, it means performing operations on the encrypted data in a way that produces an outcome which is same as performing the desired operation on the unencrypted data. Though keys are still utilised similar to other encryption techniques to encrypt or decrypt data, the difference is that it uses an algebraic system that enables a range of operations on the encrypted data.

There are three main types of homomorphic encryption - Partially, Somewhat and Fully Homomorphic Encryption. These vary based on the kind and frequency of mathematical computations (addition and multiplication operations) that can be executed on the ciphertext. 

Whilst enhanced data security, robust privacy protection, increased trust in cloud-based systems are some benefits of homomorphic encryption, it also poses certain challenges. Homomorphic encryption is a complex process, is computationally intensive and the algorithms can be difficult to implement.

Homomorphic encryption can be used by businesses and organisations across a variety of industries such as healthcare, retail, financial services, retail, information technology to allow people to use data without disclosing the original values. There are various use cases where homomorphic encryption can be put into practice - e.g. secure cloud computing, secure data outsourcing, confidential data-analytics – all in encrypted form, without the need to disclose original data.

About Baseel

Baseel Partners LLP is a UK-based consultancy company with a Global footprint providing services across 50+ countries. They have 65+ consultants spread across the globe with a cumulative technical experience of 1000 plus years working across multiple industry domains, including Banking and Finance, Pharma, Retail, Public Sector, Charities, and Oil and Gas. We are also vetted by the UK Government to be listed on the key supplier frameworks such as G-Cloud 13 and Digital Outcome Services.

To learn more about Baseel and the cyber security services they deliver, visit: Baseel

What should I do next?

1. Join our community at the Eastern Cyber Resilience Centre; it’s totally free. We can talk to you about your firm’s cyber resilience and can offer guidance to free tools that you can implement straight away.
2. If you want to protect yourself form cyber-attack, consider implementing the 5 control measures found in Cyber Essentials – this will drastically reduce your likelihood of becoming a victim yourself, and so reduce the threat to your supply chain.
3. Tell us when you are ready and we can refer you to one of our Cyber Essentials Partners, who are cyber essentials accreditors in the East of England. They can accredit your work or provide technical help if required.
4. Contact the ECRC if you wish to learn more about Police Cyber Alarm – a free downloadable analyser that sits on your external firewall and looks for signs of suspicious or malicious activity.  If it finds anything of note it will inform you and the police who it specifically helps to build up a national current cybercrime intelligence picture.

Further Guidance and Support

The ECRC is a police-led, not for profit organisation which companies can join for free. When you join our community, you get:

• Threat alerts both regionally and nationally
• Signposting to free tools and resources from both Policing and the NCSC
• Free Little steps programme – which aligns to cyber essentials with bite-sized practical information to build cyber resilience.
• Support from the ECRC team.
• Check out our partnership pages for commercial cyber services.

We also work with local university students, who are trained and mentored by senior ethical hackers, to deliver affordable services designed especially for small and medium businesses. So, when you're ready for an insight into if you have common vulnerabilities, are sharing a little too much online or want to review your policies and practices think of us.

Reporting a live cyber-attack 24/7

If you are a business, charity or other organisation which is currently suffering a live cyber-attack (in progress), please call Action Fraud on 0300 123 2040 immediately. This service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Reporting a cyber-attack which isn't ongoing

Please report online to Action Fraud, the UK's national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime. You can report cybercrime online at any time using the online reporting tool, which will guide you through simple questions to identify what has happened. Action Fraud advisors can also provide the help, support, and advice you need.

Report a phishing attack

If you suspect a phishing attack, please report it to the Suspicious Email Reporting Services (SERS) set up by the NCSC at: report@phising.gov.uk

Text messages can be forwarded to 7726