Data encryption occurs on your end of the data storage process. We do not want to know what your data is, and presume you would rather not give us access to your mission critical corporate data either!

Most modern backup software supports data encryption as part of either the central backup process, or as part of the transmittal of information to offsite storage.

We highly recommend you encrypt your data and burn your encryption keys to at least two CD-ROMs and store them in physically distant locations from each other.

There are two cases here:

1. When you send your data to us.
2. For customers with geographical redundant storage, for when we do replicate (synchronize) to our servers.

Case 1. When you send data to us, whether your transmission is encrypted depends on the protocol you use.

We recommend, where possible, that you transmit your data to us through an encrypted channel. With an unencrypted channel it is possible for an eavesdropper to learn file names, and possibly even your offsite storage username and password!

Case 2. When we replicate between our geographically dispersed data storage locations, all communications are encrypted.

All file systems are RAID5 or RAID6.

For RAID5 file systems, each volume contains six disks or fewer with at least one of the disks designed as a hot spare with auto-rebuild.

We support a set of the most common transfer protocols in use on the Internet.

If you have a specific protocol you need, we can look into supporting it after a security review. We operate purely open source code for our offsite storage servers, which means we can read and review the code ourselves. We will not implement or support communications protocols that require us to install closed source and/or proprietary software from any vendor.

Currently (as of August 1st 2006), we support FTP, RSYNC, SCP, SFTP and SSH.

Although we do not want to release the full details of how our servers are protected, please keep in mind that:

1. The offsite storage environment you connect to is a virtual server hosted on a primary 'real' server. This means there is a second security layer in the overall design, and raw devices such as the disk system itself and system administration accounts and tools are completely unavailable in the virtual layer.
2. The 'real' server environment on which the virtual server is hosted, is not accessible from the Internet.
3. Our offsite storage servers perform active firewalling for services. This means they monitor access logs on services provided and automatically block out access where it appears an attack is being generated from.
4. Our offsite storage servers receive monthly security audits, and patches are applied within 72 hours of release. In addition, critical patches that we receive alerts from vendors about, are applied within 72 hours after receipt of notice and verification.