SSL Communication
The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a commonly used protocol for managing the security of data transmission. Bob the Backup makes use of the SSL protocol (1024 bit RSA key exchange, 128 bit RC4 stream cipher and SHA-1 integrity checking) for secure communication between the Backup Clients and the Storage Platform, including data transmission.
Blowfish Encryption
Blowfish is an encryption algorithm. It is a symmetric block cipher, which uses a variable-length key from 32 bits to 448 bits. Bob the Backup uses the maximum strength 448-bit key. |
Bob the Backup uses a combination of Blowfish encryption and SSL secure data transmission to ensure the safety of your data.
Transferring your data
When the backup software has to transfer data to our data centre, it connects using a secure SSL connection to transfer the data. Signed SSL certificates and Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) are used to verify integrity.
Storing your data
Blowfish encryption is used to encode your data on our systems, making it unreadable. The encryption we use is considerably greater than that used for Internet banking and online credit card transactions.
Your encryption key is seen as a passphrase by our backup system. A random encryption key is automatically generated when your account is created and this random key is used to encrypt your files.
The encryption key is protected by the passphrase (your encryption key) and without this passphrase you cannot decode the actual encryption key. When you change the encryption key, the actual key is decrypted and re-encrypted with the new passphrase.
Protecting your data
Your data is never touched. All data since the initial backup is encrypted with the same random encryption key even when the passphrase is changed. If you change your encryption key, you do not have to remember the previous encryption keys for future restores – the backup software will be able to retrieve your data from our system.
 Your encryption key is not stored anywhere on our backup system and is only known to you.
If you forget your encryption key your data will be unrecoverable so make sure you keep it safe. |
