Hardware Encryption Vs Software Encryption: A Comprehensive Guide

What is Encryption?

Encryption is an essential tool and an effective method for keeping your data safe as well as secure. It simply means the information is scrambled into a code and does not allow anybody to access the data unless and until the person has an encryption key. If the files are encrypted, there is no way one can read them without the right key. So if anyone tries to access your encrypted files, it would be useless to them as they won’t be able to do anything with them.

Moving further, there are two types of encryption. One is Hardware encryption, and the other one is Software encryption. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Let’s discuss what software and hardware encryption term mean, and why are they important?

What is Hardware Encryption?

Hardware encryption uses a dedicated processor to encrypt the data, physically located on the encrypted drive. A separated processor is dedicated to the task of authentication and encryption, often utilized with a random number generator to generate an encryption key.

Hardware encryption is mostly seen on mobile devices. Taking the example of the TouchID fingerprint scanner in Apple would be a perfect fit here.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Hardware Encryption

Pros:

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• Hardware encryption is safer in terms of intercepting compared to software encryption as the encryption process is separate from the host machine.
• The Use of a dedicated processor reduces the burden on the rest of the device, making the encryption/decryption process faster and does not affect the performance.
• The encryption can never be stopped by malware, or end-users at it always remain on.
• Hardware encryption protects from cold boot attacks, force attacks, and malicious code.
• It does not require hardware or software installation on the host machine.

Cons:

• Hardware encryption for storage is expensive compared to any software tool in smaller environments.
• It becomes a hassle for anyone to access the information if the hardware decryption processor fails.

What is Software Encryption?

The name itself suggests software encryption uses software tools to encrypt the data. And it totally depends upon the password to decrypt the data. If you give the password and you are good to go!

In short, it uses the user’s password as the encryption key to scramble the data written to disk. It is based either on a public or symmetric key encryption and requires software updates.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Software Encryption

Pros:

• Mainly, it does not require any hardware to scramble the data.
• It is a very cost-effective method to implement in a small application environments.
• It can be implemented in all types of media.

Cons:

• It may require complex driver or software installations
• Viruses can remove software encryption solutions from the drives.
• Hackers can access the computer and reset the attempt counter with the password. So, it is vulnerable to brute force attacks.
• Software encryption is not completely secure. If a hacker will crack the password, the encryption can be undone.
• Software encrypted drives that are redeployed improperly can leave traces of previously stored data even if it has been removed.
• It shares computer resources to encrypt the data. This can cause the entire machine and slow down the machine while the data is being encrypted or decrypted.

Thus, encrypting the data is a challenge to recover. Even if the data is recovered from a failed drive, sometimes it happens that the data is still encrypted, and one cannot read it. In that case, one can use software encryption or hardware encryption method depending upon various situations and devices like smartphones. So, having a complete backup is an advantage. Before the device gets failed, set it up or store it somewhere safe.

But, if you face problems in encrypting the device and you don’t have a current backup, in that case, you definitely need professional assistance. If you are looking for professional assistance, your search ends here!

Epilogue:

We are a top-notch data encryption company. We have skilled and experienced data encryption engineers who all are very well-versed in providing consulting and proper guidance for a successful recovery.

Get in touch with Data Empires and send in the entire device or computer because sometimes hardware components aren’t available in the hard drive to decrypt the data.

However, we would like to bring to your attention that data encryption totally depends upon the algorithm’s encryption complexity. Our data encryption experts will investigate everything and let you know about the situation and possible efforts to make the encryption data recovery successful. To know more about our encrypted data recovery services, get in touch with us and rest assured, we will take care of everything!