Safeguarding Personal and Organization Data
Last year there were several high profile cases including General Electric, Starbucks, Ford and the Veterans Administration that involved the loss of personal information from hardware devices, in particularly the laptop. The very nature of the laptop (as well as other highly portable hardware devices) increases the likelihood of them being stolen or lost.
Hardware that is stolen or lost (including optical discs, hard drives and tapes) are always disconcerting however, with tremendous amounts of data at risk losses can be disastrous resulting in the high-cost of hardware replacement, legal ramifications/liability, unscheduled administrative costs, damaged corporate/personal credibility, terminations, reduced employee morale and unremarkable company productivity.
Thus, it should not be surprising that in 2006 more than 50 Million Americans have had personal information compromised due to unforeseen security breaches such as these (Bigelow, 2006). Personal and organizational data must be safeguarded from unwanted intruders, hackers and thieves.
Given the potential corporate/organizational risks that these problems pose it is anticipated that businesses and organizations will be searching for state-of-the-art measures to safeguard their data which includes Disk Encryption.
Simply put, Encryption is a technique which makes plain data indecipherable. It begins by processing data through a multifaceted mathematical algorithm which uses a distinctive key value to produce unique encryption results. Longer keys which are used in conjunction with more complex encryption algorithms result in encrypted data (which is nearly impossible to recover without the use of a key).
Only after the data is in an unreadable form is it then considered safe regardless if the files are compromised by crackers/hackers or stolen. Encrypted data is decrypted or made readable once more by processing it through the algorithm using the same key or a companion key thus protecting the
Hardware that is stolen or lost (including optical discs, hard drives and tapes) are always disconcerting however, with tremendous amounts of data at risk losses can be disastrous resulting in the high-cost of hardware replacement, legal ramifications/liability, unscheduled administrative costs, damaged corporate/personal credibility, terminations, reduced employee morale and unremarkable company productivity.
Thus, it should not be surprising that in 2006 more than 50 Million Americans have had personal information compromised due to unforeseen security breaches such as these (Bigelow, 2006). Personal and organizational data must be safeguarded from unwanted intruders, hackers and thieves.
Given the potential corporate/organizational risks that these problems pose it is anticipated that businesses and organizations will be searching for state-of-the-art measures to safeguard their data which includes Disk Encryption.
Simply put, Encryption is a technique which makes plain data indecipherable. It begins by processing data through a multifaceted mathematical algorithm which uses a distinctive key value to produce unique encryption results. Longer keys which are used in conjunction with more complex encryption algorithms result in encrypted data (which is nearly impossible to recover without the use of a key).
Only after the data is in an unreadable form is it then considered safe regardless if the files are compromised by crackers/hackers or stolen. Encrypted data is decrypted or made readable once more by processing it through the algorithm using the same key or a companion key thus protecting the
References: Bigelow, S. (2006). Tape and Disk Encryption Product Roundup. Retrieved May 18, 2007, from http://searchstorage.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid5_gci1173496,00.html