Although automatic backup has been promoted by backup service providers, adoption has been hampered by concerns over security. SwapDrive, one such service provider, recently allayed those fears by deploying storage security firm DeCru's DataFort encryption product. With DataFort, backups are encrypted in transit and at rest, that is, on the storage devices themselves.
According to David Steinberg, SwapDrive CEO, security "was the last barrier getting customers to feel comfortable backing up their data off site." Potential customers would pose questions such as 'What if someone stole your storage?' It automatically eliminated a lot of desirable customers."
While SwapDrive "can't declare victory yet," encrypting customers' backup data "has opened the doors to government and financial deals we couldn't be involved in earlier," Steinberg says.
Similarly, Connected's TLM encrypts and compresses data on the client side before transmission, and gives administrators access to the encryption key if a user forgets a password.
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This was first published in April 2003