By Ken Smith

I have had a number of clients reach out to me about how to implement whole disk encryption, SQL transparent data encryption, and encryption of VMware VMDK files in order to satisfy “data at rest” security requirements. My response is usually something like “Say that again?”

These types of encryption approaches are designed to better protect data at rest on media that may be accessible to individuals who are not authorized to access such data. This is usually some form of portable media such as a hard drive in the notebook computer, a portable USB hard drive, a USB stick, a backup tape, etc.

And by “at rest” we are talking about files that have been saved to media and are not currently open or active. So to summarize, these types of encryption solutions are intended to protect data at rest on some form of portable media …