Forcing encryption on pendrives, diskettes, etc

A friend of mine is the IT manager in a finances company back in our country. Since in these days they are programming some layoffs he has become increasingly suspicious about the employees stealing information from the company using usb sticks, pendrives or whatever other means of storage. So, I was wondering if there it is a way to make the Operating System to encrypt automatically all the write operations to drives such that the information is render unusable unless used in certified computers.

Sambatyon

Posted 2009-11-06T11:58:28.223

Reputation: 353

Not too important for your (nice) question, but: what is "programming some layouts"? – Arjan – 2009-11-06T12:16:25.083

Sorry, as english is not my native language I tend to make a lot of mistakes – Sambatyon – 2009-11-06T12:29:45.013

1Aha, now I understand. Still, it doesn't matter for the question. (You could leave it out altogether I guess.) So, those people are not computer experts I guess? If they have internet access they could probably just use Gmail to upload the same secrets...? – Arjan – 2009-11-06T12:41:25.973

Answers

I think the idea is to encrypt the Windows partition (SafeBoot?) which enforces all copies of data within that to be made only to other locations that are also encrypted.

nik

Posted 2009-11-06T11:58:28.223

Reputation: 50 788

It all depends on how "data" is copied. It may protect files copied with CopyFileEx(), but there are so many ways around. – user1686 – 2009-11-06T13:10:52.293

Simple, low tech but will surely work.

Disable all spare USB ports. Use PS2 for Keyboard and mouse. :)

Ian

Posted 2009-11-06T11:58:28.223

Reputation: 319

And, disconnect the Internet uplink. – nik – 2009-11-06T14:06:21.417