Download

284 Chapter 9 • Protect Cardholder Data■■With FDE systems, once a user is authenticated to the system via the password usedfor the encryption software, full access to all data is achieved.This puts increasedemphasis on insuring that strong password or pass phrases are utilized for the prebootauthentication.If the encryption software becomes corrupted or otherwise fails and can’t be recoveredwith the unique recovery key, the data on the drives cannot be recovered.Theonly option is to reformat the drive. While this protects the data, it tends not to bevery popular with end users.ImplicationsIn order to ensure that stored cardholder data is protected from access by unauthorized parties,it is likely you will need to utilize both file-level encryption and FDE in your enterpriseenvironment. In addition, access controls around databases and possible column-leveldatabase encryption may be needed. Every environment is different. What you need to dowill be dependent upon your network and your current design.FDE is more suited to protecting data on workstations and mobile devices, whereas filelevelencryption is more useful as a method on storage devices. A well-designed informationassurance program will prohibit storage or transfer of sensitive data to an employee’s laptopor desktop. While this kind of policy and practice would seem intuitive and obvious, it isabundantly clear that such practices are not always followed strictly.The much publicizedcases of database managers or analysts putting thousands of clients at risk, because a laptopwas stolen which had been used to download large volumes of sensitive data from a storagedevice, only serves to demonstrate this fact.Figure 9.2 illustrates the difference in architecture between file-level encryption andFDE.