Encryption & Data/Emails

[LanceHaynie]

I am kind of curious... how many of you encrypt your data and/or emails on a normal basis? When I worked for Citigroup everything was always about security so it kind of became normal practice for me. However, I have noticed only a small percentage of the people I deal with on the "outside" actually bother with it.

Do you?

[timbertoes]

Nothing the NSA cannot read. ;)

[KenJulio]

Working for Citigroup or any of the financial instituations, you have to deal with the SEC, so yeah, everything is encrypted. When a desktop gets replaced, the harddrive is backed up in case data is needed for audit purposes. Ever since the early 2000's with the meltdowns of the major corps, Enron, MCI, etc, security of data is pretty tight.

Now in the real world, how important is an email of a proposal to a client to be encrypted? Now keep in mind, if one sides encyrpts a message, the recipient needs to decrypt it. I used to use PGP back in the day but in the non-corporate world, I didnt/dont see the need for it.

So, no.

Now, for my harddrive, if I'm selling it, it's gonna be 0'd out or smashed with a hammer.

[ngoduyviet]

Originally Posted by LanceHaynie

I am kind of curious... how many of you encrypt your data and/or emails on a normal basis? When I worked for Citigroup everything was always about security so it kind of became normal practice for me. However, I have noticed only a small percentage of the people I deal with on the "outside" actually bother with it.

Do you?

Any type of security is only to prevent honest people from being dishonest. Nothing you can do to stop a determined hacker. With that in mind, I only encrypt my web traffic when I don't want people to snoop on what I surf

[Imagebuffet]

I don't encrypt anything right now. I'm completely naked to the world.

I'm glad to see that encryption and security is so much in demand, though. Apart from simply protecting my data, that practice might help me get a job. I just completed my Security+ class, and I should be studying to take the CompTIA Security+ Certification exam.

As for a determined hacker being able to read anything you encrypt, I should point out that a new GpCode trojan was found in the wild a few weeks ago. This trojan takes advantage of a flaw in old versions of PDF files to load a program that partly encrypts and overwrites several types of files on your hard drive using two types of secure public key encryption, RSA-1024 and AES-256. These apparently are virtually impossible to break, as the only fix for the problem is to reload from backups.

GpCode-like Ransomware Is Back - Securelist

[TxLerman]

Because of the nature of my day job with deals with data that is often subject to a Court issued protective order, I encrypt any disk or data that leaves our network and I mantain an encrypted partition on my work laptop. The easist tool to use, that I have found, is trucrypt. It is free and it is the same tool that many digital forensic investigators use.