At-Rest vs In-Transit Encryption

#cloud #devops #security #cybersecurity

🔐 At-Rest vs In-Transit Encryption

What’s the Difference?

In modern cloud environments, data must be encrypted everywhere — whether it’s sitting still or moving between systems. Let’s break it down 👇

💾 At-Rest Encryption
This protects your data while it’s stored — on disks, databases, or backups.
If someone gets access to the storage, they still can’t read the data without the encryption key.
✅ Example: S3 Bucket encryption, EBS volume encryption.

🌐 In-Transit Encryption
This protects data while it’s moving between systems, apps, or users.
It ensures no one can intercept or alter data during transfer.
✅ Example: HTTPS, TLS between APIs or microservices.

🧠 Simply put:
• At-Rest → protects data “when it’s sleeping”
• In-Transit → protects data “while it’s traveling”
And both are equally critical — you can’t have real security without using both.