| This page has the list of Frequently Asked Questions |
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The software selected by EIT for securing data on computers with
sensitive data (e.g., SSN, grades, etc.) is called Cyberangel.
Cyberangel encrypts data to and from a portion (drive S) of a
hard disk with a password that the owner supplies. The encryption
and decryption is transparent, occurring as data is written to and
read from the drive. Read more here.
Most of the rest of this document is related to Cyberangel.
Q. Is my data recoverable if I forget/lose my password? A. Yes, Cyberangel or UT IT maintains keys to allow access Q. How much does performance suffer? A. Our tester, Steve Leblanc, has reported that he has not noticed encrypted documents opening more slowly. Q. Where is the secured (encrypted) data stored? A. An "S:" drive is created from space in the "C:" drive. Secured data is stored on the "S:" drive. Q. How much space is available to store documents? A. 2 Gigabytes initially, which can grow to a maximum of 10 Gigabytes. When 80% of the "S:" drive is consumed, additional space will be allocated the next time the system is rebooted. Q. Can external drives (e.g., USB memory sticks, hard drives) be secured? A. Not at this time, but that is a feature that Cyberangel has said that they are evaluating. However, there are alternatives for securing data on these devices. See "full disk encryption" below and the FAQ about secure flash drives. Q. What about Outlook files? A. No changes are made to Outlook .pst files by default. If you would like to secure your Outlook .pst files (personal folders) they must be un-mounted from within Outlook, manually moved into the encrypted drive and re-mounted within Outlook. Q. If I move a file from the C or D drive to the S drive, are the contents of the file on the disk destroyed? A. No. References to the file are removed, but the contents of the file remain on the disk. (See next question) Q. How can I destroy the contents of the file so an intruder cannot recover the contents? A. While the only sure way to destroy the data on a disk is to physically destroy the disk by shredding, melting or chemically removing the data surfaces, there are some programs that will overwrite the contents of a file or disk to make it very difficult to recover the data. Some freeware programs are: We recommend that you install the freeware software "eraser" which will automatically destroy the contents of files as they are moved from an unsecured area to the secured area. http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/ Q. How can I be certain that I have removed or moved all sensitive data to a secured area? A. There are tools with which we (or you) can use to audit the contents of the files on your computer searching for things such as SSN patterns. We recommend that such an audit be performed regularly. Q. Is Cyberangel available for purchase through the University for a personal (home) computer? A. Yes, information is available at: http://www.eitoperations.utoledo.edu/pcpersonal.asp Which was Last Updated: November 28, 2006 Q. Are the technologies that Cyberangel uses the only ones available? A. No, another technology that is coming to market is full disk encryption either by software or by firmware in the disk itself. We have not yet fully evaluated these technologies for their cost/benefit. Q. How good is the encryption? A. From the available encryption algorithms offered by Cyberangel, we selected one that is very strong, Rjindael (NIST AES). |