They say less is more. That’s rarely the case when you’re talking about data security, but there are instances where a less heavy-handed approach is appreciated by both administrators and users. A common approach to removable media encryption is to focus on encrypting the entire volume to limit the risk of data loss.

While WinMagic is a firm believer in full disk encryption (FDE) and encrypting the entire volume of removable media, we also recognize that it’s not always required. It’s one of the key reasons we introduced an enhancement to our Removable Media Encryption (RME) solution a while ago by adding Removable Media Container Encryption (RMCE) as a key feature so the solution.

What does this mean? It means we give users a choice of whether or not to encrypt the entire removable media volume or to only encrypt a portion of the volume and leave the rest untouched. The vast majority of users in many organizations use USB keys to transfer or share large files quickly due to things like e-mail attachment size restrictions etc.  However, these USB keys aren’t usually for business use only, they’re typically personal devices that they keep with them. The thought of having to encrypt that entire 32GB volume on their personal USB key is by no means ideal.

With RMCE in SecureDoc, users can create an encrypted container on the drive – a partition if you will. This can be mandated by IT and pre-set container sizes can be applied based on what IT has approved, anything from 100MB to 2GB.

If the data needs to be shared outside the organization, say with an authorized agency that does not use SecureDoc, a handy media view is included with the encrypted container so those users can then access the information in the container. With the use of a simple password, the agency can decrypt files in the container, edit them and place them back in the container when they’re done.

In an age where things are getting locked down tighter and tighter because there’s little flexibility in the solutions available, RMCE fills a gap that most users would appreciate and give IT administrators more choice and flexibility in how they handle the encryption of removable media.