For many Kansas State University faculty and staff, a laptop computer is now the workstation of choice. Thus the probability is high that sensitive information will be accessed from or stored on these devices that face a high risk of theft or loss. In fact, one study published in July 2008 estimated that over 16,000 laptops are lost or stolen from airports in the U.S. and Europe each week! Thus it is critical for K-State faculty and staff to take appropriate measures to protect K-State information stored on laptops and other portable devices.
An effective method of protection is to encrypt everything on the laptop’s hard drive, a process called “full disk encryption” or “whole disk encryption” that scrambles all the data so that only the person with the password can unlock the data and view it.
Given the importance of protecting confidential data, K-State’s new data classification and security policy requires whole disk encryption for any laptop or desktop workstation that contains confidential K-State data.
K-State’s SIRT a evaluated whole disk encryption technologies during 2008 and selected “PGP Whole Disk Encryption” as the standard product for encrypting K-State laptops and desktops. Over 1,000 licenses were purchased in December 2008 at a discounted price on behalf of campus departments. Anyone needing additional licenses will have to purchase them from SHI at normal educational prices.
To find out if you will need to install PGP Whole Disk Encrytion on your computer, contact your PGP installation contact. You can find this contact posted alphabitecally by College and Department at this link.
Your installation contact will also be able to give you further instructions to ensure that PGP is installed on your computer properly. This could involve you contacting central IT support to schedule an appointment to have your software installed. In some cases, however, the install will be handled by someone in your department.
Additional resources: