Hard drive encryption protects the entire contents of a computer’s hard drive using an algorithm, but its security was challenged in 2008 due to DRAM retaining data after a power outage. The Trusted Computing Group published a standard in 2009 to address this issue.
The term hard drive refers to the main memory used in a computer. There are several synonyms for hard drive, including disk drive and hard drive, and hard drive is an alternative spelling. Encryption means converting data into a different form using an algorithm, making it inaccessible to anyone without a secret key. Hard drive encryption refers to the act of encrypting the entire contents of a computer’s hard drive. It is in contrast to file encryption, which only some specific data, leaving the rest readable.
Hard drive encryption goes by many other names. It is known as full disk encryption, whole disk encryption, or full disk encryption, which is also abbreviated as FDE, hard disk encryption, or simply disk encryption. Hard drive encryption was thought to be a good security measure, either provided by the operating system or by a software program. It’s meant to protect data on any computer, such as a desktop computer, and has been found to be especially useful for laptops, removable media, and other portable devices that leave the office and could be stolen or lost. For full functionality, it depends on having strong passwords, as well as a backup process that will allow the network administrator to recover if a password is forgotten or an employee is fired or leaves an organization. It can also be used in conjunction with authentication measures, such as a smart card keyboard or biometric indicator.
The security of hard drive encryption was challenged in 2008 with the publication of research by a project jointly supported by Princeton University and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Research has found that even with hard drive encryption, a computer’s data may still be at risk because DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) retains data for a few seconds to a minute after a power outage, and even if the DRAM is removed, allowing the encryption key and memory dumps to be obtained. It has also been observed that when a user freezes or suspends computer operations or puts the computer into hibernation or sleep mode, the contents of RAM can be preserved and accessed. Efforts continue to make data more secure. In 2009, the Trusted Computing Group (TCG), which includes hard drive manufacturers Fujitsu®, GST®, Hitachi®, IBM®, LSI®, Samsung®, Seagate®, ULink®, Wave Systems® and Western Digital®, published a hard drive encryption standard, called the TCG Storage Specification standard, which everyone agreed on and which would omit the need for software encryption, since the system would be built into the hard drives themselves, but whether this addresses the DRAM problems is unclear .
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