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A New Solution for Data Protection
20 April, 2009 in Security
Another angle on the Data Protection discussion
Regardless of your position on what the best methods are to protect your data, I am sure we can all agree that some form of data protection is necessary, which makes it a sad fact that, despite all the admonitions we receive, approximately 60% of all PCs are not protected from data loss due to theft, hard drive failure, viruses, malware, fire, flood and ... well, you get the idea.
My employees and I have always struggled with backing up our computers, and historically we have done a poor job of it ... Even when we keep our backups up to date, they are not encrypted for safety, and we don’t keep the backup media in a safe and remote location. If any of our hard drives failed, got corrupted or our PCs were lost or stolen, we would be in a world of trouble.
Now, some people are very disciplined about backing up, using a variety of different software methods and archiving services. These dedicated data protectors employ backup strategies that often work quite well, but at the expense of being too complex for the average user. My hat is off to them, but what about the rest of us? And what happens if the data somehow manages to get into the wrong hands?
When it comes to Data Protection, more is required than just backing up. Data Protection requires frequent, strongly encrypted backups, the safe storage of that encrypted data in at least two secure off-site locations, high-level encryption of the data on your hard drive for protection in the event your data falls into the wrong hands and the remote destruction of your data in the event the system is lost or stolen. You also need a cryptographic, randomly generated security key system that guarantees that only you or your IT manager have access to your data.
Historically, it has been virtually impossible, even with multiple applications, to accomplish this level of Data Protection, and a solution that was easy enough that the average user would actually do it was unheard of.
Well, we found a solution that allows us to set it once and forget it. We now rest easy because our backup is done automatically in the background as often as we want, and we don’t have to do a thing once it is set up. Data is backed up quickly, stored remotely in multiple secure locations, strongly encrypted, and it takes care of everything without interrupting what we are doing. We can quickly restore a single file or our entire backup without any IT or data center involvement.
KingsCrypt, powered by Datacastle, is the solution we found for our backup problems. It integrates six key components for Business-Class PC Data Protection & Privacy and also provides Around-the-Clock Toll Free DOMESTIC Support:
1. Talk about easy… just set it once, and forget it!
Upload your first full 256-bit AES encryption backup and schedule the frequency of your fully encrypted incremental online backups, down to one minute intervals if you like. Your fully encrypted online backups will thereafter be completed in the background as often as you like without interfering with your work. Even files that are in use by you or your computer are backed up transparently with the simple-yet-powerful centralized interface.
2. Remote or Policy Driven Data Deletion & Device Trace.
In the event your PC is lost or stolen, just report it to the KingsCrypt Around-the-Clock Toll Free DOMESTIC Support team and, as soon as the thief connects to the Internet, your file structure will be instantly destroyed so there can be no navigation to any of your files or folders. Then all your data is wiped clean. In the event of a theft, KingsCrypt can also track the location of your laptop or desktop if it connects to the Internet to facilitate its recovery. What if the thief doesn’t go Online? You can set your own policy that will destroy your file structure and wipe your data clean if your PC does not connect to the Internet or your network for a period of time that you specify. Policy can also be set to wipe the data in the event of multiple failed logon attempts, or in the event of a brute force attack.
3. 256-bit AES encryption of all selected data.
Encryption keys for each file are generated from a cryptographically random Master Key that is virtually impossible for even the most sophisticated hacker to discover, and the encrypted data is transported via 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) to the Vault. Your file structure and metadata are also encrypted, making it impossible for anyone to discern the contents of your backup from folder names or creation dates. No one, other than you or your IT manager, can decrypt your data or even tell what you've backed up: not even KingsCrypt.
4. Eliminate the risk of lost data due to Data Center outages and equipment failure.
Subscribing to KingsCrypt solves one of the biggest concerns about storing your encrypted backup off-site by "backing up your backup" in multiple secure locations that are unique from each other in physical location, flood plain, location on power grid and bandwidth provider. In the unlikely event that one secure location goes offline due to equipment failure, power outage or any reason whatsoever, your encrypted data will remain protected and available from within one of the other geo-diverse data centers. Just consider the cost and effort required to store your data in multiple secure locations using more conventional methods of backup such as tape or external hard drives. What is the likelihood that you would actually do it even on a weekly basis? KingsCrypt does it automatically as often as you like.
5. Automatic Cryptographic, Randomly Generated 256-bit AES Encryption Security Keys.
Cryptographic, randomly generated security keys are exponentially more secure than keys derived from simple passwords. A brute force attack will crack a derived password in a matter of minutes, or at most a few hours, while cryptographic, randomly generated 256-bit AES encryption security keys are virtually impossible to crack. KingsCrypt automatically generates a cryptographically random 256-bit AES Master Encryption Security Key for each PC. No one other than you or your IT manager has access to it or can decrypt it: not even KingsCrypt.
6. At Rest Data Encryption*.
If the thief is interested in data, as opposed to a quick buck from selling hardware, he may pull the hard drive and analyze it on a system that is offline. In this situation, where data time bombs and remote deletion can't help, there is only one solution to protect your data: Full encryption of all selected data on the hard drive. By subscribing to KingsCrypt Professional, the data you have selected to manage on your hard drive is protected with 256-bit AES encryption so that, in the event your PC is ever lost or stolen, your data is protected, even if it falls into the wrong hands.
You can go to KingsCrypt.com to learn more about KingsCrypt 6-in-1 Business-Class Data Protection. It has certainly been a blessing for us.
(*At Rest Data Encryption coming Q3 2009)