Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of OpenArms
OpenArms

asked on

Can a flash drive be de-crypted without administrative rights?

Our company is looking to buy flash drives to provide for the end users.  We want to be able to encrypt or password protect these flash drives.  We have tested encryption software such as TrueCrypt and Private Disk.  We have also looked at devices with the encryption software built into the device such as the Lexar Secure II.  

So far all the software and the flash drives we have used require the user to have administrator privileges on the computer to run or access the drive.  Because we don't want to give the users Administrator privileges on our computers in the field and many users may not have adminrator privileges on computers they might be working on such as a library, we want to find something that doesn't require this level of rights, yet will still encrypt or password protect the data.

Is there a hardware or software package that will encrypt a flash drive and not require administrative privileges on a new computer after the encryption.

Avatar of adamhealy
adamhealy
Flag of United States of America image

It has been two days and no notable responses so I suppose I will put in my two cents.

Obviously www.pgp.com has a ton of various encryption software. I am not sure what your current encryption posture is throughout your IT infrastructure but the folks at PGP do have a tool for full disk encryption that you can use to encrypt flash drives. I have yet to use it on a flash drive but I am fairly sure you can use the software without required admin rights on a workstation. I would suggest calling their 800 number, I have had to use their tech and customer service numbers before and they are very helpful and friendly.
If you are using a central AD domain to manage usernames and passwords for the users, then you could use EFS to encrypt files on the removable media - that is using a windows builtin, so doesn't require the user to remember any other passwords than their own, allows you to define (and enforce) a recovery agent, in case the user forgets his password, and of course doesn't require admin rights.

it does require certificate management, but that is handled automatically by the AD level profile stuff if you are a AD user - hence my comment.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of OpenArms
OpenArms

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial