Re: Encrypting remote files with EFS

From: Robert Schwartz (robert.schwartz_at_ucdmc.ucdavis.edu)
Date: 05/10/05

  • Next message: Bruce K. Marshall: "Re: Encrypting remote files with EFS"
    To: "Zack Schiel" <ZSchiel@blueandco.com>
    Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 10:38:46 -0700
    
    

    Danger Will Robinson. Your experiences are only atypical because no one's
    lost an entire volume (yet). I can't go into my personal experiences with
    that steamy pile of encryption, but I can link a public website

    http://www.infoanarchy.org/wiki/index.php/Talk:Hard_Disk_Encryption

    I don't agree with the author's tone (although it was amusing), but I agree
    with his results. I do not consider EFS an appropriate solution to the
    requirements you sketched out.

    If you need something "Cost Comparable" to EFS (i.e. if you chose EFS
    because it's free) then try this gem:
    The following product does what you want correctly. Since it works
    correctly, if the user forgets their passphrase then the data is gone.
    It's Open Source so if you are afraid of backdoors then check the source
    code.

    http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads.php

    If you need recovery key abilities and you have a budget then buy SafeBoot,
    PointSec, Winmagic, etc according to your needs.

                                                                               
                 "Zack Schiel"
                 <ZSchiel@blueandc
                 o.com> To:
                                           <focus-ms@securityfocus.com>
                 05/10/2005 07:03 cc:
                 AM
                                                                      Subject:
                                           Encrypting remote files with EFS
                                                                               
                                                                               
                                                                               
                                                                               
                                                                               
                                                                               

    We are in the midst of deploying EFS to protect specific folders on laptop
    hard drives.  We want EFS used only for that purpose-locally; as such, we
    do not want users to have the ability to encrypt files that are residing on
    file servers.  According to my understanding of EFS, which seems to be
    confirmed by the quote below from Windows help, users shouldn't be able to
    do so unless we specifically enable file server(s) to be trusted for
    delegation in AD.

    "In a domain environment, remote encryption is not enabled by default. To
    enable encryption for a specific computer, your network administrator can
    make that computer trusted for delegation. For more information, consult
    your network administrator."

    However, some of our servers are allowing files to be encrypted and
    decrypted remotely-and these servers are *not* marked as trusted for
    delegation in AD.  Further, the user that encrypted the file can scoot over
    to another PC, log in as themselves, and access the file-and we have no CA
    infrastructure in place; these are locally-generated EFS certificates that
    do not chain back past the local client machine.  The certificate
    thumbprints in the personal store for the user account on the two PCs do
    not match, yet they can access the file just the same, while other user
    accounts cannot.

    I'm thoroughly confused by this behavior, and would appreciate any experts
    chiming in and cluing me in as to why 1) some servers are allowing remote
    encryption, while others are not, and 2) why locally-generated EFS certs
    are behaving this way.

    Our environment:
    -Windows 2000 native-mode domain
    -All DCs are Win2k, file servers are a 2k/2003 mix
    -Clients are 2000/XP; the OS of the client/server doesn't seem to
    matter-some 2k3 servers allow remote encryption, some don't, and some 2000
    servers allow, while others don't.

    Thanks,

    -Zack-

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  • Next message: Bruce K. Marshall: "Re: Encrypting remote files with EFS"

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