Encryption questions

Firstly, is all data sent to and from my PC via WSA over an encrypted connection? Secondly, once my data in on Webroot's servers, is that also encrypted?

I posted this over at the Webroot forums, but it's getting no love.

 

Encrypted...
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1956613&postcount=34

 

Ah, this is good to know. I'd still like to find out whether the info transferring from my PC is via an encrypted connection. According to TCPView, WRSA.exe is connecting over plain HTTP.

 

Yes, network transmissions are encrypted. Use Wireshark sometime to take a look and see the results if you like. It's plaintext HTTP, but the payload is encrypted.

 

Again, good to know. Thank you both for the info. It'd be good if Joe could expand on this a little further.

 

I'd be curious about it too, but when Kit was still working there, even he didn't know the encryption system.

 

The reason I'm curious about this (after having used WSA for almost two years) is because of the recent Snowden leaks.

 

The information is pretty much on the thread already linked (and in the EULA). For the rest you are unlikely to get any detailed information as it is proprietary and for security reasons I am sure that they will not be disclosed. The information anyway is hashed and not identifiable, so no risk of the Snowden effect.

 

We don't collect any private information (it's expensive to store and pointless for us to use) so there isn't anything anyone can glean from our backend. Of the data we do send, which is used for determining files as malicious, we encrypt it end-to-end. We don't use SSL as the overhead is significant but our encryption is similar and very strong, although this is primarily just to prevent data tampering rather than hiding what's being sent.

 

This is just what I wanted to hear; thanks so much Joe for taking the time to clarify this for me.

 

I have a question regarding this, and perhaps I have misread the entire thread. My first impression was that the question had to do with data being backed up as part of the Backup & Synch feature of WSA.

Joe's answer would seem to be to address how data is dealt with in terms of scanning and how that is done in the Cloud.

How would this question relate specifically to the Backup & Synch?

 

Data backed up through Backup & Sync is completely encrypted end-to-end using SSL and an additional layer of protection on top, and stored encrypted on our servers. We can't access your data at all and it is fully protected during transmission, and we don't do any "de-duplication" like Dropbox and some similar services have done.

 

Awesome reply, and right what I was looking for!

Thank you