How Fortanix as Cloud Data Security Company Reduces the Risk of Business Data Leak

This is a common news story every quarter: a multinational retailer discovers its customer database exposed on the dark web. The cause? An overlooked access misconfiguration in a cloud environment.

If something is misconfigured, Fortanix solutions help because the data is encrypted, and organizations have full control of encryption keys.

Instead of relying solely on traditional cloud security protocols, Fortanix lets you control the protection of sensitive data in all states — stored, transmitted, and actively in use.

What’s Driving the Risk in Cloud Environments

Cause of Risk	Impact of Risk	Why It's Common in Cloud Deployments
Misconfigured storage buckets	Unrestricted public access	Teams rush deployments, missing critical settings
Insider misuse	Deliberate or accidental data exposure	Privileged access often extends beyond what’s necessary
Credential theft	Full compromise of sensitive systems	Weak MFA adoption and phishing campaigns
Poor encryption key control	Data is readable if breached	Keys are stored alongside data or with the provider

How Fortanix Reduces Data Leak Risk

Fortanix takes a different route than the perimeter defenses: instead of wrapping security around systems, it embeds protection directly into the data itself. Even if attackers manage to get past firewalls, compromised credentials, or weak policies, the data they encounter is protected at every stage — stored, transmitted, and even while in active use. Fortanix offers four prime solutions. Let us understand how each one of them contributes to preventing data leak risks.

Fortanix Data Security Manager™ (DSM)

Fortanix Data Security Manager (DSM) works as a central control plane for managing encryption keys, secrets, and tokens across cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments. It features these important security properties:

1. Separation of Keys from Data

Encryption keys are at risk when stored by the same cloud provider that holds the data for convenience. If the cloud environment is compromised, data is at risk. Fortanix DSM separates the data from the cloud so that keys remain secure and outside the reach of cloud admins or attackers. This separation gives security advantages to organizations because even if cloud storage systems are compromised, attackers cannot decrypt stolen information.

2. Unified Key and Secret Management

Fortanix DSM eliminates scattered, inconsistent key management practices. Instead of multiple silos, where keys might be left unsecured, everything is centrally governed with strict access policies. This reduces the chances of forgotten keys or exposed secrets becoming a leak point.

3. Granular Access Control

Organizations can define who accesses which keys and under what conditions. Fortanix DSM enforces fine-grained permissions and executes cryptographic operations only when policies are satisfied, making unauthorized decryption nearly impossible.

4. Hardware-Backed Security

Fortanix DSM uses secure enclaves (Confidential Computing) to process cryptographic operations. This means keys are never exposed in memory or to the host operating system. Even insiders with administrative privileges can’t extract keys.

5. Tokenization and Data Masking

Fortanix DSM provides tokenization services, replacing sensitive fields (like credit card numbers or SSNs) with random tokens. Even if tokenized datasets leak, they’re meaningless without access to DSM.

6. Audit and Compliance Visibility

Fortanix DSM records all cryptographic operations and access attempts in a tamper-proof log. This not only helps detect suspicious activity early but also provides evidence for compliance audits.

Fortanix Key Insight

One of the most overlooked causes of data exposure is the lack of visibility into how encryption keys are created, stored, and used across an organization. When keys are scattered across multiple teams, clouds, or legacy systems, they can easily be forgotten, misused, or left exposed.

Fortanix Key Insight gives security and compliance teams a complete view of the cryptographic landscape.

Discovery of Hidden Keys: Many organizations have “shadow keys” created outside approved processes by developers or vendors. Fortanix Key Insight scans and uncovers shadow keys, and minimizes the risk of forgotten keys being abused.
Usage Visibility: The solution tracks when and how keys are used and flags unusual activity, such as repeated decryption attempts or unexpected usage patterns.
Access Oversight: Fortanix Key Insight shows exactly who has access to each key, making it easier to spot overprivileged accounts or misconfigurations that could lead to leaks.
Compliance Readiness: Since regulators increasingly require proof of cryptographic hygiene, Fortanix Key Insight provides the reporting and evidence needed.

Fortanix Confidential Computing Manager

The moment data is being processed, there’s a high possibility of creating a security blind spot. Once data is loaded into memory for computation, it is visible to the operating system, cloud provider, or even privileged insiders. Attackers can exploit this through memory scraping, side-channel attacks, or malicious administrators.

Fortanix Confidential Computing Manager (CCM) helps run workloads inside secure enclaves, isolated environments that keep data hidden, even while applications use it.

Here’s how that translates into leak prevention:

Shielded Processing: Sensitive information (like financial models, health records, or proprietary algorithms) stays encrypted until it reaches the enclave. Within the enclave, it is processed securely, and results are encrypted before leaving. Raw data is never exposed in memory, where attackers or admins could intercept it.
Protection from Insider Threats: System administrators, cloud providers, or compromised hypervisors can’t access what’s happening inside an enclave. That removes a common avenue for leaks caused by privileged misuse.
Remote Attestation: Fortanix CCM can verify that workloads are running in a genuine enclave before any sensitive data is released to them, and data isn’t accidentally sent to a tampered or unsafe environment.
Multi-Cloud Consistency: Whether on AWS, Azure, GCP, or on-premises, Fortanix CCM applies the same confidential computing protections. This consistency reduces gaps when organizations run workloads across multiple platforms.

The outcome is that even if an attacker breaches infrastructure defenses, the processed sensitive data remains off-limits.

Fortanix Armet AI

As businesses use AI in customer interactions, analytics, and internal workflows, sensitive data can unintentionally slip into prompts. Fortanix Armet AI stops leak and keeps AI-driven operations safe.

Sanitizing sensitive data: Armet AI automatically identifies and redacts personal identifiers or financial records before information enters an AI pipeline. This means private data never enters training or inference sessions, helping businesses stay compliant and protecting end users.
Fence in prompts: Models can be manipulated with carefully crafted instructions. Armet AI validates and hardens prompts, preventing direct injection attacks and more subtle manipulations that might coax a model into exposing restricted information.
Catching hallucinations: Large language models sometimes produce convincing but inaccurate statements. Armet AI actively monitors responses, flags inconsistencies, and helps teams measure reliability so results don’t undermine trust.
Enforcing policies: Outputs stay within approved boundaries, aligning with compliance needs and ethical standards while reducing the risk of rogue or inappropriate responses.

Instead of treating these as separate problems, Armet AI addresses them, giving businesses confidence that their AI systems won’t turn into another channel for data leaks.

Real-World Results

Industry	Challenge	Fortanix Solution	Outcome
Healthcare provider	Need to store patient records in AWS and Azure while staying GDPR, HIPAA-compliant	Data Security Manager™	Patient data remained encrypted and isolated during ransomware, avoiding HIPAA penalties and preserving patient trust.
Financial services firm	According to OWASP, the top security risk for LLMs is "prompt injection". It may lead to exploitation of the model and may result in disclosure of sensitive information	Armet AI	Detected abnormal query patterns in real time and blocked the activity, preventing exfiltration of customer financial data.
Global bank	Thousands of encryption keys are spread across business units with little visibility	Key Insight	Discovered unmanaged shadow keys, weak keys, consolidated oversight, and flagged risky usage patterns — reducing the chance of forgotten or misused keys leading to data leaks.
Pharmaceutical company	Need to run sensitive research computations in the cloud without exposing intellectual property. The other reason for CCM is to secure patient data	Confidential Computing Manager	Secured research data inside hardware-based enclaves during processing, preventing leaks from cloud administrators or infrastructure-level attacks.

Take the Next Step

With Fortanix solutions — from Data Security Manager™ and Key Insight to Armet AI and Confidential Computing Manager — organizations gain the control, visibility, and assurance they need to keep business-critical information safe. The best way to understand the impact is to see it in action.

Book a demo with the Fortanix team and experience how these solutions close security gaps, prevent leaks, and give your business the confidence to move forward securely.