Endpoint Encryption

Hi, all.

Looking for a bit of advice on the use of PGP Command Line...

My company has a requirement to encrypt individual data files before they're transferred to a partner organization by way of SFTP. Intent is to have the data encrypted at the source, and decrypted by the partner, then vice versa. The kink is that we have multiple data sets from different endpoints internally that are all going to be aggregated on a file server and then transferred en masse. Encryption must happen at the source, before aggregation, to guard data in transit on the internal network, so there will be multiple instnaces of PGP encrypting outbound data. I think this will be fine, all endpoints will encrypt with the partner public key. There will be a reverse data flow coming from the partner back to our internal endpoints, but here's the problem...

Because we have multiple endpoints decrypting inbound data, my interpretation of PGP command line suggests that we must have unique public/private pairs, meaning that we cannot provide a single public key if data is to be decrytped on multiple endpoints. I think for this to work the way I'm describing, a public/private pair would have to be both exported from one PGP install and imported to all endpoints, so that they can all decrypt using the same private key. Is this possible? Hope I'm being clear...

Many thanks!

If you're using asymmetric encryption, then yes, you will need to ensure that all your internal endpoints have access to the same private key that corresponds to the public key your partner organisation is using to encrypt data.

The below article shows the commands to mange keys:

https://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH211002

On a separate note, it is possible to tell PGP to encrypt using a symmetric passphrase, if you would find that easier to manage (and avoid having to copy keys around all your internal endpoints):

https://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH148895

Thanks a bunch! Either option should work in our scenario, much appreciated.