The Hard Way

Hardware-based encryption does not require user intervention

  • By Michael Willett
  • Aug 01, 2008

Almost every day, a report of lost, stolen or missing notebook PCs and hard drives or of related data breaches shocks the global community, including those people whose data has been compromised. Protection of data on individual systems and drives, as well as in data centers, has become a necessity for corporations, universities, government agencies and other organizations.

The Trusted Computing Group has worked with storage standards groups to create an open specification that enables full-disk encryption for hard disk drives, also called self-encrypting drives. This encryption is hardware-based and transparent to the user. Once the drive is in the system, data is automatically and continually encrypted. If a user cannot authenticate access to the system or if the system is lost or stolen, the hard drive locks and becomes useless. Further, this hardware-based encryption does not require user intervention and does not impact system performance as encryption usually does.

The Security Dilemma
Today, more than 40 breach notification laws exist. These laws are rapidly moving the industry toward full-disk encryption. Protecting data that is lost or stolen requires a breach notification, unless the drive has FDE. With FDE, no notification is required, as long as it can be proven that the data was encrypted.

The transportability of laptops makes them a prime target for loss, theft and encryption of sensitive data. While drives may be secure in the data center, eventually every drive leaves due to failure, maintenance, reconditioning, end of life, or even loss or theft. In fact, 50,000 drives are decommissioned from data centers each day.

As a result, the same rules for laptops apply to drives, even in the data center. The data on the drive should be encrypted before it leaves the data center. Rather than requiring an additional off-drive and upstream process to encrypt the drive, this on-drive encryption should protect the data center under normal operation.

Encryption Solutions
In the data center, there are various points to implement either software- or hardware-based encryption. Softwarebased schemes, however, can be thwarted by the same viruses and malware they attempt to prevent.

There are several reasons to perform encryption directly on the hard drive as opposed to some point upstream in the data center. For example, there are performance and efficiency issues in data deduplication and data compression.

Deduplication tools require looking at the plain text. Since much of the data is the same, storing it once and pointing to that data whenever it is needed in some other context through deduplication techniques frees up a significant amount of storage space. With encrypted data, deduplication cannot be performed because the same data encrypted at different points in the data stream could look different in encrypted form. Decompression techniques require redundancy in the message for compression. Encrypted data is totally random and has no built-in redundancy, so it cannot be compressed.

As a result, encrypting too early in the data flow makes deduplication and decompression algorithms ineffective and interferes with end-to-end integrity metrics. Within the data center, data should not be encrypted until it reaches the drive. However, deduplication and decompression provide only part of the incentive for encrypting directly on the drive. When encryption is performed everywhere or anywhere instead of in the drive, the situation is quite complex. Managing encryption, as well as authentication keys, is one of the more important aspects of encryption. The authentication key unlocks the drive. Only the hash value of the authentication key is stored on the drive for comparison during authentication. Furthermore, the encryption key is encrypted under the authentication key and stored on the drive.

Full-disk Protection
 In an FDE drive, the encryption keys are established in the factory by on-board random number generators and never leave the drive, eliminating the need to manage encryption keys. In the data center, key management only requires managing the authentication keys, which eliminates layers of key management.

FDE reduces IT complexity. The database administrators, application developers, operating system, encryption engine and network issues are all eliminated by encrypting at the drive. The storage system upgrades by schedule in an FDE system. Adding drives is simple since each drive comes with its own encryption key. The system has scalability, and encryption is performed in hardware, allowing full-channel-speed operation.

Encrypting stored data outside the drive has planning and management issues that add to complexity, errors and data recoverability risk. These include problems that can occur in the following scenarios: when application developers change applications, when database administrators change databases, in managing and scaling encryption CPU demand as storage and I/Os are added, through extra storage for decreased compression and deduplication effectiveness, by tracking both encryption and local keys on all associated hardware/ software for data recovery and in granular data classification.

In contrast, when encryption is performed in the drive, the process is simplified by adding a key service to one server and adding FDEs to application storage with scheduled upgrades.

Cost is a primary business value. For FDE, the initial acquisition costs are reduced when encryption is integrated into standard products and implemented according to a standard storage upgrade schedule. Additional cost reduction occurs from reduced drive decommissioning and insurance, the ability to compress and deduplicate, and preservation of drive hardware value through easy repurposing. Since simply deleting the key sanitizes the drive, the drive can continue to perform a useful function rather than being scrapped.

Without FDE, there are transport issues, and degaussing, shredding and overwriting techniques must be used at the end of a drive’s life. None of these techniques is foolproof, and all have additional cost. With FDE, the simple erasure of the key sanitizes the drive, making it unreadable. FDE becomes practical and ubiquitous with open industry standards.

Featured

  • New Report Reveals Top Trends Transforming Access Controller Technology

    Mercury Security, a provider in access control hardware and open platform solutions, has published its Trends in Access Controllers Report, based on a survey of over 450 security professionals across North America and Europe. The findings highlight the controller’s vital role in a physical access control system (PACS), where the device not only enforces access policies but also connects with readers to verify user credentials—ranging from ID badges to biometrics and mobile identities. With 72% of respondents identifying the controller as a critical or important factor in PACS design, the report underscores how the choice of controller platform has become a strategic decision for today’s security leaders. Read Now

  • Overwhelming Majority of CISOs Anticipate Surge in Cyber Attacks Over the Next Three Years

    An overwhelming 98% of chief information security officers (CISOs) expect a surge in cyber attacks over the next three years as organizations face an increasingly complex and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven digital threat landscape. This is according to new research conducted among 300 CISOs, chief information officers (CIOs), and senior IT professionals by CSC1, the leading provider of enterprise-class domain and domain name system (DNS) security. Read Now

  • ASIS International Introduces New ANSI-Approved Investigations Standard

    • Guard Services

  • Cloud Security Alliance Brings AI-Assisted Auditing to Cloud Computing

    The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), the world’s leading organization dedicated to defining standards, certifications, and best practices to help ensure a secure cloud computing environment, today introduced an innovative addition to its suite of Security, Trust, Assurance and Risk (STAR) Registry assessments with the launch of Valid-AI-ted, an AI-powered, automated validation system. The new tool provides an automated quality check of assurance information of STAR Level 1 self-assessments using state-of-the-art LLM technology. Read Now

  • Report: Nearly 1 in 5 Healthcare Leaders Say Cyberattacks Have Impacted Patient Care

    Omega Systems, a provider of managed IT and security services, today released new research that reveals the growing impact of cybersecurity challenges on leading healthcare organizations and patient safety. According to the 2025 Healthcare IT Landscape Report, 19% of healthcare leaders say a cyberattack has already disrupted patient care, and more than half (52%) believe a fatal cyber-related incident is inevitable within the next five years. Read Now

Most   Popular

New Products

  • A8V MIND

    A8V MIND

    Hexagon’s Geosystems presents a portable version of its Accur8vision detection system. A rugged all-in-one solution, the A8V MIND (Mobile Intrusion Detection) is designed to provide flexible protection of critical outdoor infrastructure and objects. Hexagon’s Accur8vision is a volumetric detection system that employs LiDAR technology to safeguard entire areas. Whenever it detects movement in a specified zone, it automatically differentiates a threat from a nonthreat, and immediately notifies security staff if necessary. Person detection is carried out within a radius of 80 meters from this device. Connected remotely via a portable computer device, it enables remote surveillance and does not depend on security staff patrolling the area.

  • Camden CV-7600 High Security Card Readers

    Camden CV-7600 High Security Card Readers

    Camden Door Controls has relaunched its CV-7600 card readers in response to growing market demand for a more secure alternative to standard proximity credentials that can be easily cloned. CV-7600 readers support MIFARE DESFire EV1 & EV2 encryption technology credentials, making them virtually clone-proof and highly secure.

  • Luma x20

    Luma x20

    Snap One has announced its popular Luma x20 family of surveillance products now offers even greater security and privacy for home and business owners across the globe by giving them full control over integrators’ system access to view live and recorded video. According to Snap One Product Manager Derek Webb, the new “customer handoff” feature provides enhanced user control after initial installation, allowing the owners to have total privacy while also making it easy to reinstate integrator access when maintenance or assistance is required. This new feature is now available to all Luma x20 users globally. “The Luma x20 family of surveillance solutions provides excellent image and audio capture, and with the new customer handoff feature, it now offers absolute privacy for camera feeds and recordings,” Webb said. “With notifications and integrator access controlled through the powerful OvrC remote system management platform, it’s easy for integrators to give their clients full control of their footage and then to get temporary access from the client for any troubleshooting needs.”