Data Encryption on tape

[Kevin_Schmick]

Hello,

Is there a way to encrypt the data that is stored on your tapes, in case the tapes are lost(http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1812817,00.asp)
or stolen, no one can gain access to the data on tapes. We have LTO1 tapes and running BE 9.1 on Windows 2000. I didnt' know if there was a setting in BE 9.1 or not.
Please advise?

Kevin

[Ken_Putnam]

You cannot encrypt the data, but if you give the job a password,. the ontape catalog and the data cannot be accessed unless you provide the password.

The data is un-encrypted, but would require a specially written program to access it.

If you use a password and software compression, you should be fairly safe, since the compression algorithms are proprietary.

[A_van_der_Boom]

Just out of curiosity, what happens when you backup a W2k EFS, would the data on the backup still be encrypted, or would BE decrypt is before writeing it to tape ?

Regards
A van der Boom

[Ajit_Kulkarni]

Hello,


As of now, Backup Exec 9.1 does not support encrypting data as it writes it to tape. Other than protecting the tape or the backup with a password, Backup Exec 9.0 or 9.1 does not have any form of encryption protection before the data is written to the tape.

A media can be password protected to avoid unauthorized access at any computer running Backup Exec that does not already contain a current copy of the catalog of that password protected tape by preventing unauthorized access to the Catalog of a tape. This protection of the on-tape catalog prevents unauthorized access to data that has been placed on a password protected tape.


You may refer the following technote for details on how to password protect the tape media,


http://seer.support.veritas.com/docs/236709.htm


At present Backup exec version does not have this function available.

Hope this answers your question.

Regards.

NOTE : If we do not receive your intimation within two business days, this post would be marked ‘assumed answered’ and would be moved to ‘answered questions’ pool.

[Sheetal_Risbood]

As per our previous reply, marking the case as assumed answered and moving it to answered questions pool.