Archive Encryption Key Security

By default your account and archive is secured with a randomly-generated 448-bit encryption key that all your computers use to encrypt your backup data. The encryption key itself is also secured with your account password.

For security minded users, CrashPlan PRO offers additional security options. Each of these security options offer greater security and correspondingly require greater effort to use. Options include:

• Account Password (Default): Using your account password to secure your data is the simplest method and requires no additional effort on your part.
• Private Password (Better Security): Using a private password adds another layer of security, but it is another password to remember.
• Private Key (Best Security): Replacing the default encryption key with a private key is the most secure option, but it requires the most work because you must provide your private key when doing any restore.

Because you don't want someone getting at your data by simply downgrading your security, we have made it so CrashPlan PRO does not allow you to downgrade your security option.

If you really must downgrade your security, you will have to create a new account and start your backups over.

• Enforce higher levels of security by requiring either the correct password or private encryption key to restore your files.
• Apply the specific level of security for your organization's needs.

• If you lose the private password or private key, you will not be able to restore your data.
• Once you have upgraded your security settings, you can never downgrade.
• CrashPlan Support has no way to recover your private data password or private encryption key because we never have access to this information.
• Administrators need to enter the user's private password or private key to restore files for users. PRO Server admins cannot restore data for a user without the private password or private key. Passwords cannot be viewed in the admin console, so a user must give this information directly to the administrator.
• Administrators can keep users from upgrading their own security level, if needed.
• Important: You cannot recover your files if you forget your private password or lose the custom encryption key you created. You must reinstall CrashPlan on all computers in your account with a new username and start backup over.
• This means: If you must restart your backup, your previous backups are no longer available and cannot be restored.

• Upgrade Security in PRO Client
• Upgrade Security in PRO Server