This past summer, we had to determine how 'Personally Identidifiable Information' could be protected. Not just on the laptops that managers play with but all PII that is move offsite. We made our recommendations. We have since been told that we do not have to worry about encrypting our backups because management has weighed the risks of sending the unencrypted backups offsite or not sending any backups offsite and someone has accepted the risk of sending out unencrypted backups. Management knows best.
I have learned how to encrypt my backups (system disks and user data). I have demonstrated that encrypted backups can be done at our home site within our current backup window. I have demonstrated at our hotsite that restores from the encrypted tapes can be done and that we need more resources to do it within our Recovery Time Objective. When the unencrypted backup tapes go missing, I can go to my next job interview with a clear conscience that I did my part and I can explain to the interviewer how they can protect their backups too. My recommendation to you is accept the 'freebee' encryption tools and learn them. Use them even if only for your own stuff. Knowing how to encrypt and decrypt will come in handy either at this job or your next. /Tom Kern On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 08:09:39 -0600, Robert Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >To encrypt or not to encrypt, that is the quandary! > >We are a Health Care provider in Washington State. One of our vendors has >'given' us some 'free' (ha-ha....no such thing as a etc etc) >data encryption >software. Questions have been asked by management as to 'do we need to use >it'. Make the assumption that the additional cycles required would not be a >problem. > >Our auditors, legal folk, and managers have not been able to give us a >definitive answer as to requirements. I also understand that state and >federal requirements may be different, but am trying to get a feel for >this. > >What generally is the approach of others with respect to data tapes sent >for stored offsite. > >Do you encrypt data on tapes destined for offsite secure locations ? >(yes or no) If so, to what extent ? (all or some) > >If you are able to respond, I would appreciate the feedback. >TIA >Robbie Bell >Group Health Cooperative ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
