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The Opal Storage Specification is a set of specifications for features of data storage devices (such as hard disk drives and solid state drives) that enhance their security. For example, it defines a way of encrypting the stored data so that an unauthorized person who gains possession of the device cannot see the data.
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.
Some laptop drives and "green power" desktop drives are programmed to unload the heads whenever there has not been any activity for a short period, to save power. [ 68 ] [ 69 ] Operating systems often access the file system a few times a minute in the background, [ 70 ] causing 100 or more load cycles per hour if the heads unload: the load ...
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 ...
Some USB drives utilize hardware encryption in which microchips within the USB drive provide automatic and transparent encryption. [8] Some manufacturers offer drives that require a pin code to be entered into a physical keypad on the device before allowing access to the drive.
With a software implementation, the bootstrapping code cannot be encrypted however. For example, BitLocker Drive Encryption leaves an unencrypted volume to boot from, while the volume containing the operating system is fully encrypted. With full disk encryption, the decision of which individual files to encrypt is not left up to users' discretion.
Note that this does not imply that the encrypted disk can be used as the boot disk itself; refer to pre-boot authentication in the features comparison table. Partition: Whether individual disk partitions can be encrypted. File: Whether the encrypted container can be stored in a file (usually implemented as encrypted loop devices).
The encryption method should not waste disk space (i.e., the amount of storage used for encrypted data should not be significantly larger than the size of plaintext). The first property requires defining an adversary from whom the data is being kept confidential. The strongest adversaries studied in the field of disk encryption have these ...