An operating system, by definition, provides open access to applications and thus exposes these access points to improper use. Software runs under an operating system that is vulnerable to viruses and other attacks. Software can be corrupted or negated, while hardware cannot. Hardware based encryption is very secure far more secure than any software-based offering. Here’s a look at some pros and cons of SEDs: Pros of Opal Compliant Drives Pro No.

The remaining 49 percent cited their organizations’ need to comply with self-regulatory programs such as PCI DSS, ISO, NIST and others. The main reason to encrypt data-at-rest is to comply with state or federal data protection laws said 51 percent of the IT practitioners surveyed. The study, Perceptions about Self-Encrypting Drives: A Study of IT Practitioners, interviewed 517 IT professionals in various fields who are familiar with SEDs.Ĭompliance is the main driver for encrypting data-at-rest, the study found and confidential financial documents, employee records and customer data are the top three types of data that are normally encrypted.

In fact, 70 percent of the respondents said that self encrypting drives would have an enormous and positive impact on the protection of sensitive and confidential information in the event that a data breach should occur. “Encryption standards established by organizations such as the Trusted Computing Group are making it significantly easier to deploy security solutions such as self-encrypted HDDs on portable PCs,” said IDC Industry Analyst, John Rydning.Ī study released a few months ago by TCG and the Ponemon Institute found that most IT professionals agree that hardware based encryption is superior to software varieties at protecting data-at-rest. Such vendors include Absolute Software, CryptoMill, McAfee, Secude, Softex, Sophos, Symantec, Wave Systems and WinMagic. Many independent software vendors provide management of self encrypting drives, both locally and remotely. Prominent makers of Opal-compliant, self encrypting drives (SEDs) include Hitachi, Samsung, Seagate and Toshiba. In addition, because the encryption/decryption keys are stored in the hard drive controller and never sit in the system’s memory, cold-boot attacks don’t work. It also transfers the computational load of the encryption process to dedicated processors, cutting the stress on the host system’s CPU. But over the past couple of years, a hardware based hard drive standard has emerged in the form of Opal Security Subsystem Class, or just Opal for short.ĭeveloped by the Trusted Computing Group (TCG), a not-for-profit international standards organization, Opal is used for applying hardware-based encryption to hard drives (rotating media), solid state drives, and optical drives.

Full-disk encryption (FDE) used to be a software-only proprietary solution.

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