Calculating the Cost of Full Disk Encryption 242
CowboyRobot writes "Is full disk encryption (FDE) worth it? A recent study conducted by the Ponemon Institute shows that the expected benefits of FDE exceed cost by a factor ranging from 4 to 20, based on a reduction in the probability that data will be compromised as the result of the loss or theft of a digital device. 'After doing all of the math, Ponemon found that the cost of FDE on laptop and desktop computers in the U.S. per year was $235, while the cost savings from reduced data breach exposure was $4,650.'"
Truecrypt TCO (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Real Costs (Score:5, Interesting)
At least partially:
"The study found that the most expensive element of FDE is not the hardware or software involved, but the value of user time it takes to start up, shut down and hibernate computing systems while using FDE. "
But this study doesn't pass the smell test. Take this, for instance: "The cost savings from reduced data breach exposure was $4,650." Imagine that FDE takes the risk of data breach on a stolen disk from 100% down to 0%. And imagine that any given computer has a 1% chance each year of being stolen by someone who's going to exploit the data on it (rather than just reformat it and sell or use it). Both of those are very generous estimates.
The average value of a lost computer to my company--either in terms of profits lost or competitor's profits gained--would have to be $465,000 for the math to work. Which as a median doesn't make sense.
If it's a mean, it only makes sense because there are a handful of computers whose value is tens or hundreds of millions of dollars counterbalancing the vast array of other computers worth far less--but if that's the case, the right solution probably isn't to lump all machines together for analysis purposes, it's to segregate out the high-value targets and treat their security differently from the low-value targets.
Re:Real Costs (Score:3, Interesting)
Not when you're using an SSD.
Re:One click for $235 (Score:2, Interesting)
Security is not something you mess with.
Personally, my data is worth a lot, to me, not to anyone else, I can't put a price on it. Simply because the data on it is personal, irreplaceable, I'd rather have it destroyed than having some one else see it (no, not porn).
A company can. You have 10 million records, they get stolen, class action suit gets you to pay damages 10k for each ...
To be honest this whole computer security isn't even about technology or security expertise or anything like that, it's about money and savings. Companies don't want to back-up their data because of the implied costs, so, they risk it and consider it a financial risk. Same for security.
Share your experiences (Score:4, Interesting)
It would be handy if people could share their experiences with encryption.
Good, bad, ugly.
E.g., is it better to encrypt your home directory (as Ubuntu gives you an option for), or the whole disk?
Has anyone had a problem where you were unable to access your encrypted home directory or drive?
Does encryption increase the possibility that a small problem on a single sector of a disk will render the whole volume unreadable?
What about using encryption along with various levels of RAID?
In some circumstances, I'll connect a harddrive via USB. If you disconnect it, sometimes Ubuntu won't let you access the encrypted volume again until you physically turn on and off the drive (or, sometimes, reboot). Stuff like that makes me fearful.
Re:Real Costs (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed on the smell-test. No matter how good a security-measure is, it cannot save more money than is lost without it. (i.e. the best possible security is 100%)
Thus for FDE to save $4650/computer/year, the current cost of data-loss that would be avoided with FDE must be atleast the same amount.
There's about 100 million computers sold annually in USA, essentially none of which have FDE. The average computer is used for atleast 3 years. The total *current* cost of data-losses must thus be atleast: 100M * $4650 *3 = $1395 billion/year.
That doesn't pass the smell-test. It would mean the losses add up to $12500 a year for each household, which is utterly ridicolous.
Re:One click for $235 (Score:5, Interesting)
Surely if it means a lot to you but not to anyone else then encryption is not as important (if at all) as backing up?
I have lost personal data. I also have a few old and fairly important files kicking around that I password protected many moons ago and forgot the password.
I have chosen not to encrypt, but I have a very solid backup routine.
But then I can't imagine having data that is so personal (and yet irreplaceable) that I would rather lose it than have some random look at it.
Re:One click for $235 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Silly numbers (Score:4, Interesting)
- tech time spent on password resets: zero. This is real encryption, there's no such thing available as "password reset", there's only a passphrase which cannot be recovered. If it can, then this means you have zero security
Nonsense. For example, Apple uses three keys: 1. The actual encryption key for the disk. It is never accessible to the user, it is stored in encrypted form on the disk, and by overwriting that portion of the disk, you can wipe a disk within milliseconds. 2. The master key. This key is used to decrypt the real key. It's a long hex number; you can write it down _and put the paper in your safe_. You'll never need it unless you need to do a password reset. 3. The user's password. The user has a password which is used to recover the master key. Multiple users can have different passwords. The password can be changed at any time without having to re-encrypt the data, because it is only used to decrypt the master password.
So you can do password resets, but only if you have the master key. Which is used _only_ for that purpose.