Slowly but Surely, Feds Adopt Encryption

Often the wheels of government get moving towards preventing a repeat of a high-profile disaster. This was the situation when in a case in 2006 there was massive leakage of data from the information of millions of U.S. veterans. This episode prompted the White House to initiate a presidential mandate where all agency mobile laptops and devices saving sensitive data must fully encrypt their hard drives.

Although slow but the encryption project ball is rolling for sure, according to the Web site Full Disk Encryption. By the government's posting of RFPs (request for proposals), vendors have an opportunity to present their case for their firms' encryption products. Any other encryption that the Federal Government uses, the chosen FDE (Full Disk Encryption) item must ensure FIP 140-2 certification.

This implementation will be the single largest implementation and any information relating to the competition will be available in the public domain. The U.S. federal government will deploy the selected product on millions of its computers. The evaluation will span over 90 days.

With the recent rise in laptop thefts and data security violations, government institutions and large enterprises are turning to various 'Full Disk Encryption' solutions to safeguard their confidential data. The corporations interested in this include Seagate, Mobile Armor, Pointsec, SafeNet and Credant. The evaluation is expected to wind up in 90 days.

'Full disk encryption', alternatively called 'whole disk encryption' is an encryption of either software or hardware that encrypts every detail of the data that enters a disk. The term 'full disk encryption' particularly indicates that everything on a disk is encrypted. That also includes the operating system.

The full disk encryption encrypts even the swap space and the temporary files. It is necessary to encrypt these files as they can show important confidential data. The user does not decide which files to encrypt while there is a feature for pre-boot authentication.

It would be interesting to assess the cost at the end of encryption as well as the level of its effectiveness. Hopefully, the Feds will benefit from it than a D+ when they assess their data security competence next time.

Related article: Sale of Hacking Toolkits Enable Novices to Enter Cybercrime

» SPAMfighter News - 1/4/2007