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by throwaway38375 743 days ago
I should clarify that I see the value of encryption at rest for something like an employee laptop, which could be left at a bar (while powered off) by accident.

I just don't get the value of it for always online servers.
2 comments
JackSlateur 743 days ago
How are online servers differents ?

You can remove storage devices from online servers, without interruption. Said devices will contains data that could be "lost" that way. Hence: encryption at rest.

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nine_k 743 days ago
An intruder gains access to an API box, and could try to read sensitive data from a DB. But the interesting fields are encrypted, and the key is somewhere in RAM. Not impossible to exfiltrate, but takes much longer time and more skill, thus cannot be made an unattended malware payload. Also, a key for one customer won't give access to data of other customers, even if the common database access credentials are obtained.
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