Dell Encryption External Media Priority
Summary: This article explains when external media is encrypted, and what priority the external media encrypts the media.
Symptoms
Affected Products:
- Dell Encryption External Media
- Dell Data Protection | External Media Edition
If the Dell Encryption External Media (formerly Dell Data Protection | External Media Edition) Scan External Media Policy is selected external media is scanned every time, it is inserted and authenticated according to the last set of policies received.
If the Dell Encryption External Media Scan External Media policy is not selected, then any updated EME policies that are received does not affect files already on the encrypted media. You must either enable the policy, or copy the file off and back onto the media to encrypt it according to the new policy.
Cause
Not Applicable
Resolution
Dell Encryption External Media
If a new policy is applied to the computer with the Dell Encryption External Media Scan External Media policy disabled and previously encrypted media is inserted, the state of existing encrypted files on the media remains encrypted by the older policy set.
- If you change the encryption algorithm from AES 128 to AES 256 and insert media encrypted with the AES 128 policy, new files that are added to the media are AES 256 encrypted, but existing files, even if edited, remains AES 128 encrypted.
- If you change the policy so that .mpg files are no longer encrypted, when you insert media that has a policy that encrypted .mpg files previously, then new .mpg files that are added to the media are not encrypted, but the existing encrypted .mpg files remain encrypted.
For all existing encrypted files that are updated to match the new policies, the Dell Encryption External Media Edition Scan External Media policy must be selected when the new policy is delivered to the media. In this case, if Dell Encryption External Media Edition Scan External Media is selected, files are scanned and updated to match the new policy every time the external media is inserted into a computer with the new policy.
Dell Encryption External Media relies on the operating system to communicate the properties of media that are connected to the computer. Delays or interference in communicating this information can result in EMS not applying the encryption policy, allowing a user to copy files to the media without encrypting files. A large variety of media storage devices from multiple vendors are tested and we Dell expects the occurrence of this situation to be rare.
File system partition sizes:
- FAT16 - 4 GB
- FAT32 - 2 TB
- NTFS - 2 TB
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