Can you keep a secret?

Keeping a secret can be difficult and draining, for several reasons. According to an article in Scientific American, the main reason is that keeping a secret, or even the intention of withholding information, is emotionally draining and makes us feel inauthentic.

Despite the psychological challenges involved in keeping secrets, there are many examples of secrets remaining hidden for hundreds of years. The location of the tomb of Genghis Khan has been kept a secret for nearly 800 years. According to Mongolian legend, the funerary escort of the Great Khan murdered every living creature, human or otherwise, that it encountered to ensure that no one and no thing knew the location of their deceased emperor.

Another example of a well-kept secret is near to my heart because it involves fried chicken (you must have fried chicken and champagne at least once in your life). Harland Sanders developed his famous recipe for fried chicken, served out of his gas station, over a number of years (or maybe he didn’t). When he began to franchise his fried chicken business in the 1950s under the name “Kentucky Fried Chicken,” he was concerned about competitors stealing his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices. He went to great lengths in working with several suppliers for KFC to make sure that no one of them had the complete recipe. Alas, the secret recipe was revealed in 2016 when the Chicago Tribune interviewed one of the heirs of the KFC dynasty.

NetApp knows a thing or two about how to keep secrets. In fact, NetApp is the only enterprise storage vendor on the National Security Agency/Central Security Service list of vendors approved for the Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) program. (See the CSfC components list.) In fact, NetApp is so sure of securing your data that we offer a Ransomware Recovery Guarantee.

“People say it's lonely at the top, but I sure like the view.” —Charlie Sheen

As I’ve previously noted, “when you’re the first & only at something, by definition, that puts you in a lonely place.” That’s OK with us. We’ll continue to enjoy the solitude and the view. o read more about why NetApp is the world’s most secure storage for your Top Secret (or not) data, wherever it resides, click on over to the cyber resilience page on NetApp.com.