Backup and Encryption Must Work Together

In her Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine Online column, Roberta Bragg writes in depth about protecting your laptop. As you might expect, she touches on the importance of backing up your laptop data. What I found most interesting, however, was her discussion of encryption.

Windows 2000 and Windows XP Professional offer an encrypting file system (EFS) that can be used to help protect your data in case your laptop is stolen. However, you have to consider encryption and backup as intertwined topics, you can't just think of each in isolation. Private keys that your encryption system needs to work properly have to be backed up. Your encrypted file may have attributes that must be copied in addition to the contents for decryption to work later. If you're using EFS and a third-party backup program, make sure that software "understands" EFS.

As usual, the acid test is of a good backup plan is to see if you can actually recover some of the backed up data on demand. More so than usual, if you're using EFS or other encryption arrangements, you might get an unpleasant surprise if you do not periodically confirm that restores work correctly.

July 24, 2004July