Does Your Business Need Disk Encryption?
Over the past few months, the experts at MicroTech Systems have received a number of questions regarding “data encryption” or “disk encryption.” Everybody wants to know, what exactly is this high-tech-sounding procedure, and is it necessary for their business? The good news is that encryption isn’t some arcane technology available only to IT experts. It’s a fairly simple lock-and-key strategy for protecting your data from shady infiltrators, and encryption software comes standard with all Windows installs past Vista, as well as Apple systems.
accessed. Imagine locking your server, laptop, or computer hard drive behind a vault door that only you have the key to . Do you need it? Short answer? As usual, that depends. The thing about encryption is that it’s so easy, inexpensive, and straightforward. In fact, Bitlocker, one of the most commonlyused softwares for encryption, comes free with Windows 7, 8, and 10. If you’ve got medical data, financial data, or sensitive data housed on your business network — and especially if you’ve got employees working from a remote system like a laptop — it’s a good idea to lock that data up as much as possible. But there are a couple of small downsides to disk encryption. For one thing, this particular type of encryption won’t protect you from hackers. If a malicious party gets into your computer network and then tries to access an encrypted server, that wall of encryption won’t deter them, since that computer is already allowed access to the server. And just like a vault, encrypted files need a key to access. If you lose your encryption key or forget your password and find yourself unable to get into the system, you’re probably sunk. So, if you’re dealing with ordinary documents or other non-sensitive data, it may not be worth that risk. But if you have sensitive data and you are confident you can keep your encryption key locked down and prevent it from being lost, it’s another security step that you might want to look into.
How encryption works To put it simply, disk encryption uses complicated algorithms to scramble the data on your laptop, server, or other device into inaccessible, unintelligible code. Anyone snooping on this information (maybe they’ve stolen your laptop or physical server) will find it all but impossible to access without a special encryption key that only your most trusted parties will have access to.
There are other types of encryption, such as “in transit” encryption, which protects data in motion like emails or browser data, but for the purposes of this article, we’re mostly talking about “full disk encryption” or “file encryption,” which protect static files or entire hard drives from being
Father’s Day Chili Lime Chicken Wings
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Ingredients
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4 pounds chicken wings 1 stick unsalted butter, softened 1 1/4 tablespoons Thai red curry paste
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1/4 cup soy sauce
1 lime, halved
Extra-virgin olive oil Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper Chopped cilantro for garnish
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1/4 cup honey
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Directions
1. Heat oven to 425 F. 2. Rinse wings under cold water and pat dry. Season liberally with salt and pepper,
3. Blend butter, red curry paste, honey, and soy sauce in a large mixing bowl. 4. Toss wings in butter mixture. Squeeze lime juice on top, transfer to serving plate, and garnish with cilantro.
and drizzle with olive oil. Roast on a baking sheet for 25 minutes or until skin becomes crisp and brown.
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