Local Encryption ... Why Not?
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
and when it happens no one knows what is wrong with the system and it is just "dead".
Then they call their friendly MSP/Consultant and say "hey it's asking for some Bitlocker password" and you give it to them and all is good in the world.
Why wouldn't this work?
It assumes...
- Good MSP records.
- That they still have the same MSP or can find the right one.
- They know enough to call the MSP.
- They consider this something for the MSP to fix and aren't mad at the MSP for breaking the system.
- The people who worked with the MSP are still around.
- The MSP is available immediately at the time needed and doesn't need time before responding.
Lots to go wrong there. Look at @Dashrender's description of a doctor's office. They can't even figure out what app to use to open a document. how could they possibly deal with knowing what vendor to call when. They'd far more likely call the NAS vendor and yell at them for not supporting their product.
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@scottalanmiller said:
how could they possibly deal with knowing what vendor to call when.
There is only 1 vendor to call. The people who helped them with all their computer stuff.
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@scottalanmiller said:
- The MSP is available immediately at the time needed and doesn't need time before responding.
That's the only issue I see there.
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But again ... what are the odds a server is just going to reboot in the middle of the day. It doesn't happen on any of my servers. Is this something you see a lot?
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@BRRABill said:
But again ... what are the odds a server is just going to reboot in the middle of the day. It doesn't happen on any of my servers. Is this something you see a lot?
This would suck in a data center environment. Remote reboots .. Having to hop into the Out of band management to get it booted up. No Thanks.
This is why physical security is important. Have audit trails for server room access.
Also not even sure how you do this with a large scale SAN setup like ours. It's just not practical.
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I was reading that and saw it edited before my eyes! LOL.
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@Jason said:
This would suck in a data center environment. Remote reboots .. Having to hop into the Out of band management to get it booted up. No Thanks.
This is why physical security is important. Have audit trails for server room access.
I've admitted that data center scenarios encryption is not such a big deal as the risk of theft is much less.
I'm talking more about the company that has a server locked in a server room, behind locked lobby doors, behind lock building doors. But you never know, right?
Low incidence of theft, true.
But I'm argiung if the pain of encryption is low enough, it;s worth it as an added security feature.
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@Jason said:
This would suck in a data center environment. Remote reboots .. Having to hop into the Out of band management to get it booted up. No Thanks.
Definitely agreed.
WOuld have to be an environment where humans are able to get in front of the device easily.
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I think SMBs tend to focus on the wrong thing when they have lots of other low hanging fruit. More complexity doesn't nessecerily mean more security. Also how big of a target are you anyway? A doctor doesn't go giving you medicine for something you have low risk for.
Most companies would freak out if they saw our logs and how many hacking attempts we get in just a few minutes.
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@Jason said:
More complexity doesn't nessecerily mean more security.
My argument here is that is doesn't really add that much more complexity for the potential added security it brings.
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@BRRABill said:
@Jason said:
More complexity doesn't nessecerily mean more security.
My argument here is that is doesn't really add that much more complexity for the potential added security it brings.
it boils down to risk - do you have a higher risk of theft or higher risk of data corruption, inability to boot?
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@Dashrender said:
it boils down to risk - do you have a higher risk of theft or higher risk of data corruption, inability to boot?
Have you seen a lot of data corruption or inability to boot with hardware FDE or Bitlocker?
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nope, but then again I have never used them.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
how could they possibly deal with knowing what vendor to call when.
There is only 1 vendor to call. The people who helped them with all their computer stuff.
I assume you are being sarcastic. Almost no company has only one company that does everything for them. Even those that have only one often can't figure out who they are. Companies, especially little ones like doctors' offices tend to turn over providers very quickly either because they are trying to be cheap and looking for a deal or are getting fired as clients regularly and would have to figure out which one to call from the history books. The people working often can't figure out the different between their MSP and the vendor name on the hardware.
The ability to contact the right people is far more advanced than the ability to open a file. Knowing who to call is a serious issue for a lot of customers.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
- The MSP is available immediately at the time needed and doesn't need time before responding.
That's the only issue I see there.
Actually one of the more minor ones. Still pretty big, though.
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@BRRABill said:
But again ... what are the odds a server is just going to reboot in the middle of the day. It doesn't happen on any of my servers. Is this something you see a lot?
Um, all the time. You are talking about small businesses like doctors offices. How many have generators or even good UPS? How many accidentally reset gear? This is very common. I've seen it a few times this week already. Maybe you are dealing with much bigger companies that we normally see. Anyone under a few hundred users this is a very common problem.
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@Jason said:
@BRRABill said:
But again ... what are the odds a server is just going to reboot in the middle of the day. It doesn't happen on any of my servers. Is this something you see a lot?
This would suck in a data center environment. Remote reboots .. Having to hop into the Out of band management to get it booted up. No Thanks.
This is why physical security is important. Have audit trails for server room access.
Also not even sure how you do this with a large scale SAN setup like ours. It's just not practical.
you do it on a per server basis and it sucks.
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@BRRABill said:
@Jason said:
This would suck in a data center environment. Remote reboots .. Having to hop into the Out of band management to get it booted up. No Thanks.
This is why physical security is important. Have audit trails for server room access.
I've admitted that data center scenarios encryption is not such a big deal as the risk of theft is much less.
I'm talking more about the company that has a server locked in a server room, behind locked lobby doors, behind lock building doors. But you never know, right?
Low incidence of theft, true.
But I'm argiung if the pain of encryption is low enough, it;s worth it as an added security feature.
Here is the problem.... if the company has a DC then it probably doesn't need encryption. If the company doesn't have a DC, then it likely has issues like not being able to figure out who to call for support, not having good IT processes and will have issues with servers restarting at unexpected times. The place where encryption is a problem is also where it is most needed.
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@BRRABill said:
@Jason said:
More complexity doesn't nessecerily mean more security.
My argument here is that is doesn't really add that much more complexity for the potential added security it brings.
And our argument and all studies that I've heard of agree and I know of no dissenting information... is that complexity adds no potential security, it in fact dramatically lowers security. Complexity is actually the enemy of security. Complex passwords are complex for humans, not computers. Computers can't tell that they are complex. But complexity means that they have to be shorter and/or recorded and follow patterns for humans to be able to use them. The more complexity you add, the more security you remove.
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
it boils down to risk - do you have a higher risk of theft or higher risk of data corruption, inability to boot?
Have you seen a lot of data corruption or inability to boot with hardware FDE or Bitlocker?
Yes, so much so that in environments that use them they are limited to only the most incredibly critical parts of the workloads and mostly they are avoided completely because they introduce so much risk. Not corruption, not sure that I've ever seen that first hand. But inability to boot is literally every time the machine reboots. Sure we would always get it resolved, but some manager always had to be paged out.
And trust me, even with seven figure people having to put in the password and having to do it on a fairly common basis it was always a risk because only a few people knew the password and they would forget the process regularly. These are big time IT and financial people, not doctors. Imagine how much worse it is for doctors!
