File Share Encryption

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  • 1.  Recovery Token?

    Posted Apr 11, 2011 04:29 PM

    OK. . .I have several laptops with WDE. They have been like this since before my employment. I have one today that is no longer excepting the windows logon and is now asking for a pass phrase. Since this was all set up before I was employed and the person who set it up is no longer with us, I do not know the pass phrase. Is there a way I can get back into the system? Is there a one time token I can use or anything of that nature I can apply for to get back into this particular laptop? Formatting is not an option. I really need back into the system. Any help is greatly appreciated.



  • 2.  RE: Recovery Token?

    Posted Apr 11, 2011 04:38 PM

    If I boot into Safe Mode will it bypass PGP? This way I could get to configuration and change password.



  • 3.  RE: Recovery Token?

    Posted Apr 11, 2011 06:04 PM

    No, the WDE cannot be bypassed.

    If you are in a PGP Universal managed environment using PGP Universal customized installations, your setup might have selected the option of using Whole Disk Recovery Tokens (WDRT).  If you your installations are not of this nature, there is no such recovery token available.



  • 4.  RE: Recovery Token?

    Posted Apr 12, 2011 09:48 AM

    Is there a way to find out if such option was selected when originally set up?



  • 5.  RE: Recovery Token?

    Posted Apr 12, 2011 10:06 AM

    It could only be done if you have a PGP Universal Server.  If you do, the admin should be able to tell you.  If this is now your responsibility, I'd suggest searching for WDRT in the Universal Server documentation.



  • 6.  RE: Recovery Token?

    Posted Apr 12, 2011 10:50 AM

    I wish that was the case. We do not have a Universal Server and do not know the passphrase. The laptops were apparently just set up with PGP and the passphrase reset questions were not enabled during the set up phase. We now know that the laptops user was prompted to change her Windows password and so when she clicked on the link to do so it brought her back to the PGP login screen. She never got to the point to change her Windows password, so it should have let her login with her old one. Is there something out there that will get me into the system again?



  • 7.  RE: Recovery Token?

    Posted Apr 12, 2011 11:58 AM

    PGP is truly secure encryption - there is no backdoor for doing this. 



  • 8.  RE: Recovery Token?

    Posted Apr 12, 2011 12:17 PM

    Well Tom, I do thank you for your help. It looks like I am going to have to format and reinstall everything, except this time PGP will be installed correctly with a passphrase and reset questions in case it is not remembered. I appreciate the help you were able to give me.



  • 9.  RE: Recovery Token?

    Posted Apr 12, 2011 01:03 PM

    Another option you might want to consider is adding another user to each machine's WDE, such as WDEadmin having the same passphrase on each machine, or perhaps adding an eToken for access.