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The Encrypting File System (EFS) on Microsoft Windows is a feature introduced in version 3.0 of NTFS [1] that provides filesystem-level encryption.The technology enables files to be transparently encrypted to protect confidential data from attackers with physical access to the computer.
For Data at Rest protection a computer or laptop is simply powered off. The disk now self-protects all the data on it. The data is safe because all of it, even the OS, is now encrypted, with a secure mode of AES, and locked from reading and writing. The drive requires an authentication code which can be as strong as 32 bytes (2^256) to unlock.
Disk encryption does not replace file encryption in all situations. Disk encryption is sometimes used in conjunction with filesystem-level encryption with the intention of providing a more secure implementation. Since disk encryption generally uses the same key for encrypting the whole drive, all of the data can be decrypted when the system runs.
The contents of the encrypted device are arbitrary, and therefore any filesystem can be encrypted, including swap partitions. [2] There is an unencrypted header at the beginning of an encrypted volume, which allows up to 8 (LUKS1) or 32 (LUKS2) encryption keys to be stored along with encryption parameters such as cipher type and key size. [3] [4]
Filesystem-level encryption, [1] often called file-based encryption, FBE, or file/folder encryption, is a form of disk encryption where individual files or directories are encrypted by the file system itself. This is in contrast to the full disk encryption where the entire partition or disk, in which the file system resides, is encrypted.
The key used for disk encryption is sealed (encrypted) by the TPM chip and will only be released to the OS loader code if the early boot files appear to be unmodified. The pre-OS components of BitLocker achieve this by implementing a Static Root of Trust Measurement—a methodology specified by the Trusted Computing Group (TCG).
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Some disk encryption software (e.g., TrueCrypt or BestCrypt) provide features that generally cannot be accomplished with disk hardware encryption: the ability to mount "container" files as encrypted logical disks with their own file system; and encrypted logical "inner" volumes which are secretly hidden within the free space of the more obvious ...