Brian P Rowe

US Patent:

20160342532, Nov 24, 2016

Filed:

May 12, 2016

Appl. No.:

15/153706

Inventors:

- San Jose CA, US
Tomasz Barszczak - San Jose CA, US
Brian Rowe - San Jose CA, US

International Classification:

G06F 12/14
H04L 9/08
G06F 3/06

Abstract:

One method for managing encryption includes identifying an available or a secure mode. During restarts a passphrase must be entered in secure mode but not in available mode. Further, a master key is created for encrypting volume keys, where master and volume encryption keys are not stored in non-volatile memory (NVRAM) nor in disk storage. A half-key is created by encrypting the master key with a secure key, the secure key and the encrypted volume encryption keys being stored in disk storage. The half-key is stored in NVRAM only in available mode but not in secure mode. The master key is recreated during a restart when operating in the available mode by decrypting the NVRAM half-key with the secure key from disk storage. Further, the passphrase must be entered by an operator to recreate the half-key and the master key during a restart in the secure mode.