For a financial firm handling sensitive client data, both encryption at rest and in transit is crucial. End-to-end encryption using HTTPS secures data during transmission. However, not all encryption algorithms provide the same level of security. AES-256 is currently considered the industry standard for strong encryption. While RSA is a commonly used public-key cryptosystem, it does not specify the data encryption method for at-rest scenarios, which is crucial here. Database encryption provided by the cloud vendor is important but without specifying the encryption standard, its strength can't be assured. Simply changing file permissions is insufficient for the encryption needs of sensitive data.