How Online Secure Data Backup Works

How local and remote encryption protects your data

One of the most important aspects of the backup process is safeguarding your information. If you are entrusting your personal or corporate data to a third party for safe storage or backup, then adequate safeguards must be taken to ensure that the data remains private. Two of the leading online file backup service providers, Mozy and Carbonite, each use encryption to provide an Online Secure Data Backup.

MozyHome gives you the ability to select your data encryption key (a string of numbers and letters that only you would know), with 256-bit AES encryption. Your data is encrypted on your local hard drive before it is sent to the Mozy systems, OR you can let MozyHome generate a 448-bit Blowfish key that handles the encryption. Either way, the actual transfer of data between your computer and server is encrypted using 128-bit SSL encryption, the industry standard for safe and secure data transfer.

Carbonite also encrypts data on the computer or server before it is backed up, and encrypts it again during the transfer to their systems. Carbonite uses a combination of Blowfish and DES III (Triple DES) encryption.

Keep in mind that if you chose to encrypt using your own key, none of the providers will be able to decrypt your data. That goes for you as well, should the key be lost or forgotten over a period of time.

From a performance perspective, since the data on your computer or server is already encrypted before being sent up to the service providers, there should be very little performance impact on the day to day operations of your computer or server, though that could change over time.

Several key factors in addition to the matter of security to consider are the amount of data you expect to backup and how fast your connection is to the Internet for upload purposes. Both of those values will impact how quickly your initial backup takes place, though it will be less of an impact on subsequent backups (known generally as incremental or synthetic fulls).

Both companies and others in the market today offer Online Secure Data Backup services for individuals and companies. Please compare their features before determining which one provides the services you require at a cost you deem acceptable.