Microsoft researchers have developed a prototype data security system designed to avoid data theft.

Microsoft researchers have developed a prototype data security system designed to ensure that information can only escape in an encrypted form that would be nearly impossible for hackers to decode without the decryption key.

The system also can perform statistical analyses on encrypted data without decrypting it, and the results are fully encrypted as well and can only be interpreted using the data owner s key.

The researchers say the prototype storage system is the most practical example of a cryptographic technique known as homomorphic encryption.