What is encrypted cloud storage?
Files are scrambled with an algorithm and a key. Anyone holding the key can restore the original; anyone without it sees noise.
Encryption explained
Encrypted cloud storage, and what comes after it.
Encryption protects data with mathematics and keys. Citadel adds a physics-based protection layer designed around a different security model.
What is zero-knowledge encryption?
A model where the provider never holds your key, so it cannot read your data. It is a meaningful improvement — and it still depends entirely on a key.
Where does Citadel differ?
Citadel does not rely on a key remaining secret or an algorithm remaining unbroken. Data is reduced and separated so that no single location holds anything meaningful.
Three ways key-based protection fails.
The key is stolen, along with everything it opens. The key is compelled, by a subpoena, a regulator or an employer. Or the algorithm is eventually outpaced by better mathematics and faster machines.
None of these require an attacker to break the encryption in the moment. They only require patience.
Harvest now, decrypt later.
Encrypted data taken today is being stored for the day it becomes readable. For files with a ten- or twenty-year sensitivity horizon — patents, deals, medical records, keys — that is a live risk, not a theoretical one.
Distributed, meaningless fragments do not become readable when computing improves. There is nothing coherent to decrypt.
Encryption and physics-based protection side by side
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What protects the data? | Encryption: an algorithm plus a secret key. Citadel: reduction, separation and distribution of the data itself. |
| What does an attacker get from one location? | Encryption: a complete ciphertext to work on. Citadel: a fragment with no independent meaning. |
| What happens if the key leaks? | Encryption: the data is readable. Citadel: there is no key that reconstructs a file on its own. |
| What about future computing power? | Encryption: harvested data may become readable. Citadel: fragments remain meaningless. |
Questions people ask
- Does Citadel still use encryption?
- Encryption remains part of a layered approach in transit and at rest. The difference is that Citadel does not depend on it as the only thing standing between an attacker and your file.
- Is this the same as zero-knowledge storage?
- No. Zero-knowledge storage moves the key to you. Citadel changes what is stored so a key is not the deciding factor.
- Is encryption no longer worth using?
- It is absolutely worth using. It is simply not sufficient on its own for data with a long sensitivity life.
Keep reading
Citadel by Secured2
Protect what matters most.
Citadel is accepted by a limited number of organisations each quarter. See the plans and start with the data you cannot afford to lose.