What's On Tape? The InStock Blog

Protect Your Data - Tape Encription Best Practices

Protecting your data with tape encryption can be confusing. Here are some best practices to help clear the confusion. Today's data storage and archiving compliance regulations have directly affected the way businesses ensure the security of their stored data. Meeting encryption regulations helps to decrease data security against breaches and ensure that your firm remains in compliance.  

Legislative laws in many states and nations now require extensive notifications and huge fines in cases of data breaches. There is also the cost of losing valuable company data during an outage. Tape encryption is one of the most popular solutions used today for tape storage security. In their white paper, “Data Protection – Shedding Light on Tape Encryption”, Iron Mountain highlights the highest priority tape content that should be encrypted in order to ensure the confidentiality of records:

• Customer data (account information including contact name, address and credit card information)

• Data subject to federal guidelines on security (medical, financial and legal entities)

• Data that contains confidential personal information (data that could be found on a credit report, HR file or job application)

There are three main types of backup data tape encryption solutions being widely used. Each one is designed for a specific purpose/use:

1. Host-based encryption – for single systems or limited set of systems.
2. In-band encryption appliances/switches
   -  For data transferred across a wire
   -  Placed in the middle of a storage connection
   -  Shared by many different applications and hosts
3. Media-based, or tape drive, encryption – uses a variety of technologies to encrypt data in media-specific formats.
   -  Storage array integrated – each drive in an array is
      encrypted.
   -  Tape encryption – backup media server encrypt the data as
      it is written to a disk or tape.

Regardless of the method chosen or the drive used 9840D, LTO4 or T10000, tape encryption is essential to ensuring the security of data for your company and your clients.