Do you need to encrypt your data?

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ON SECURITY By Susan Bradley Encryption can protect your data, but sometimes it can block you from it. Let’s get some facts. Encryption, when done rig
[See the full post at: Do you need to encrypt your data?]

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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lmacri, rc primak, Norio, windbg

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Encryption complicates the tasks used to troubleshoot a computer that is not working right.

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rc primak

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How?

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Right off the bat I can say that both Secure Boot and Bitlocker Encryption can make USB flash drive portable tools difficult to use. Extra steps are often necessary to perform troubleshooting or repairs from these bootable USB drives. But there may be other more technical aspects of troubleshooting which can be adversely affected by encryption.

-- rc primak

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Examples please.

Otherwise you’re not really answering how disk encryption complicates troubleshooting, just repeating Ben’s comment that it does.

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If it’s BitLocker, you need the recovery key to mount the drive. Plus your recovery environment will need to have BitLocker support. Hopefully you can at least run manage-bde to mount it with the key.

If it’s third-party encryption it’s even worse. Chances are your recovery environment won’t support it at all. So you could be looking at decrypting the disk with a tool from the vendor before you can do anything.

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The link at the bottom of Susan Bradley’s September 12th post points to the September 5th Plus Newsletter not the September 12th Plus Newsletter where her full post about encryption is located.

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Fixed! Sorry about that!

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Susan Bradley wrote:

Do you need to encrypt your data?

My data does not contain my social security number, driver license number, nor any other relevant information that could be used to facilitate identify theft; no credit card numbers, nothing in that category.  No trade secrets or contract details, etc.

My laptop has even less data, none of the above mentioned types of data, and it is either in my home or in my possession.  I’ve had it since 2011, and I have no fear of it getting stolen.

Susan Bradley wrote:

Encryption can protect your data, but sometimes it can block you from it.

Indeed.  Encryption is something for which I don’t feel any need, and is an unneeded layer between me and my data, which could conceivably suffer some glitch which might separate me from my data.  That puts the icing on the cake of not needing it in the first place.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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Mark

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No passwords stored on disk anywhere?

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rc primak

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Although, if a password manager is used, this should not be a problem. That’s not out in the open storage of passwords.

-- rc primak

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Because at least that data is encrypted?

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b wrote:

No passwords stored on disk anywhere?

Yes.  In a password protected file that is not named Passwords.

I’m unconcerned about anything that requires direct access to my PC or laptop.

If someone has direct access and can successfully log in on my PC or laptop, then my data is not really encrypted anymore, is it?

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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bbearren wrote:

If someone has direct access and can successfully log in on my PC or laptop, then my data is not really encrypted anymore, is it?

No; but if the disk is unencrypted, they don’t need to log in to get data.

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windbg

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b wrote:

No; but if the disk is unencrypted, they don’t need to log in to get data.

But, you’ll have to admit that they would still have to be inside my house, alone, which ain’t at all likely.

bbearren wrote:

My data does not contain my social security number, driver license number, nor any other relevant information that could be used to facilitate identify theft; no credit card numbers, nothing in that category. No trade secrets or contract details, etc. My laptop has even less data, none of the above mentioned types of data, and it is either in my home or in my possession. I’ve had it since 2011, and I have no fear of it getting stolen.

At any given time, I can completely replace my PC with all new hardware and restore drive images to completely recover OS, data, everything, and in a matter of a couple of hours be up and running as if nothing changed.  I’ve already done that once after a house fire.  I somehow don’t think that Bitlocker would make that easier to accomplish.

I don’t need/want drive/device encryption.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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What’s the point?  If someone really wants to get your data, they will get it, one way or another (including physical abuse if necessary).

I’m mostly talking about government agencies but it could be others.

 

 

 

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Mark wrote:

What’s the point?

It’s certainly easy to think that way. Anyone standing their ground only to look up and see thousands of arrows arcing their way is going to feel overwhelmed.

But we can’t just give in.

 

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