Why Encryption Isn’t Optional – Lessons from Real-World Data Breaches

In today’s digital battlefield, unencrypted data is a sitting duck. From hospitals to government agencies, companies around the world have paid the price for neglecting encryption. In many cases, data wasn’t stolen because systems were breached—it was stolen because it was left readable.

Take the 2017 Equifax breach: over 140 million records were exposed, including Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses. The attackers didn’t need a backdoor; the data wasn't encrypted. Similarly, Marriott’s 2018 breach leaked 500 million customer records, many of them stored in plaintext.

Encryption is the last line of defense when prevention fails. It ensures that even if attackers get in, they get nothing useful. At Verto Solutions, we treat encryption as a core layer, not an afterthought—our CIPHERLOCKS v5 platform uses military-grade standards (AES-256, post-quantum-ready algorithms) to ensure total data confidentiality.

Think of it like a safe: even if someone breaks into your house, what they find inside should still be locked down. Without encryption, you’re essentially leaving the doors wide open.

For technical users, encryption goes beyond just AES—it's about key management, implementation correctness, and endpoint security. For non-technical readers, just know: if it’s not encrypted, it’s vulnerable.

In plain English: Breaches are inevitable. What matters is whether what’s stolen is usable.