How to encrypt devices?

Mobile devices have become an indispensable requirement in today’s highly techie world. It has become a storehouse of both personal and business data regardless of the criticality of the content in store. Be it a handheld device like a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a mobile phone or a laptop, storing data in these devices has become unavoidable. But what if this data gets compromised? Mobile devices are majorly prone to data leakage and hence protecting critical information is quite a necessity. Encryption is the best way to protect such sensitive data.

Encryption methods are a vital component for an organization’s data security policy and act as an immune system for the organization to withstand data loss. The basic idea of encryption is to protect the data from falling into the wrong hands, should someone get ahold of the device. If the organization engages with plenty of devices, encryption is the best-suggested option.

Encryption is not just about preventing unauthorized data access; it supports something called “defense in depth” that builds a chain of defensive mechanism layers to thwart the attack. Hexnode offers generic encryption strategies like setting up password policy, full disc encryption (FDE) with FileVault for Macs, BitLocker for Windows 10, and inbuilt encryption-supported restrictions.

Password Policy and Restrictions

Setting up a password policy via the Hexnode MDM console ensures security depending on the password strength. In the security context, choosing a password that has numeric, alphanumeric and uppercase characters enhances security as such passwords are more difficult to crack. Hexnode also supports some encryption enforcing restrictions in iOS and Windows platform that add-on to basic privacy concerns.

BitLocker

BitLocker for Windows 10 PCs is yet another full volume encryption tool supported by Hexnode that enforces encryption on hard drives for data protection. This mechanism prevents unauthorized data access by encrypting the entire volume on the hard disk.

FileVault

Hexnode allows encrypting data on macOS devices with FileVault. FileVault is a full disk encryption program on Macs that encrypts all the information on your device. Once encrypted, the device becomes inaccessible unless a valid recovery key is entered. Additional data added on to the device are automatically encrypted as they are saved to the device. Hexnode’s overall encryption functionalities ensure security for data at all times, maintains data integrity, protects privacy, and makes sure there is no way for data to get compromised.