One should always encrypt data on PCs and notebooks, especially now that the governmental and industrial demand for protecting private information is growing, along with the fines if such is left unprotected even without much resulting damage. Stolen, lost or breached laptops and desktops are also a never-ending occurrence.
But if you encrypt the data on your drive with programs like BitLocker or TrueCrypt doesn‘t necessarily mean that the local backups to USB or notebook is also encrypted. How many people, however, would know or have the time to encrypt the archive as well or use an encrypted hard disk, especially in small to medium companies.
Casper Secure Drive Backup
The emergence of Casper Secure Drive Backup 2.0 by Future Systems Solutions has just made the encryption of backups fast and easy for PGP encrypted hard disk running Windows. This software makes an encrypted “clone” of the system Windows drive, together with the OS, programs, settings and all user data. The application operates within Windows thus excluding the nuisance of not using or restarting the PC.
Marty Rubenstein, the company’s Product Manager, claims that Casper is the only program on the market now, which creates a copy of the PGP Whole Disk in one go from Windows without losing the original encryption of the data.
The “clone” can be used immediately from anywhere with a PGP key. It can be accessed, browsed or used as backup boot drive, even from an external USB. According to president of Luth Computer Specialists Beth Cohen, this mode of operation would be useful for those encrypting desktops or laptops and making local copies.
Other applications of Casper
According to the developers, Casper can transfer a whole PGP encrypted system to a larger hard disk and have access to the full capability of the new one, or transfer from a hard disk to a solid-state disk – always without the need to decrypt/encrypt everything, as is the case for other cloning methods.
Casper Secure Drive Backup may be useful even to companies who backup over networks by PGP because it can provide them with separate archiving and restoring utility.
The new features include support for PGP Desktop 10, Windows 7, and SSDs, enhanced scheduling of backups and up to fifty times faster work thanks to the SmartClone Plus technology.
Rubenstein claims that the application can also backup and restore from flash drives if they are used as hard disks rather than big floppies, despite the fact that this type of archiving is not yet officially supported. He notes that flash drives, factory made as super-floppy or hybrid with CD, can be restarted to appear as hard disk, at which point Casper will find and use them.
