Pointsec, ghost, imaging

I am attempting to create a set of bootable recovery DVD's for
laptops. Everything works fine except that the laptops (when our
system is complete) will be encrypted using Pointsec (unless we can go
through a complex procedure to get exemption). Obviously if the
laptops have normal sized drives then we will need too large a set of
DVD's to store the drive image on - the drive will be mostly empty.

I am wondering if it would be possible to create a small partition eg
4GB to store XP, and our application on, could this be used to reduce
the size of the image?

Also wondering if Pointsec is anything like PGP disk encryption where
the location of sectors on the drive matters so if a restore is done
to a different drive than that on which it was created the encrypted
information is reduced to garbage due to a different pattern of bad
sectors?

Any help / information would be appreciated.

Thanks. Peter Cupit

PeterCupit

Hi Peter,

PeterCupit wrote:
> I am attempting to create a set of bootable recovery DVD's for
> laptops. Everything works fine except that the laptops (when our
> system is complete) will be encrypted using Pointsec (unless we can go
> through a complex procedure to get exemption).
[snip]

You say that when your system is complete, the HDDs will be encrypted.
I'm not sure which of Pointsecs offerings you are using, so, does the
software allow you to encrypt the disk retrospectively? If that is the
case, it would be easy to take a snapshot of the drive prior to
encrypting it.

Also, please bear in mind that if you are using the SAME encrypted
image, the key material will be the same for all laptops. I assume that
you could assign different passwords to each of the laptops after the
HDD restore, but the actual KEY material will be the same, leaving your
systems slightly more vulnerable.

You say there is a complex procedure to get exemptions. This suggests
that there is a higher authority or Accreditor that you will need to
satisfy with your solution. It may well be worth checking if using the
same crypto key material is acceptable to them.

> I am wondering if it would be possible to create a small partition eg
> 4GB to store XP, and our application on, could this be used to reduce
> the size of the image?

As for the smaller partition, I don't know. You would have to refer to
the software manual to check. If it is possible, it will leave a very
large area of the HDD that is not encrypted. That is likely to be the
area where data is stored and more likely to need encryption.

> Also wondering if Pointsec is anything like PGP disk encryption where

Sorry, I've not touched PGP disk encryption.

Hope this helps,

Bogwitch.

Bogwitch