Advantages and Disadvantages of EFS and Effective Recovery of Encrypted Data

The creators of EFS have also ensured against the loss of the private key by the user, for example as a result of OS reinstallation, or when new user accounts were created. Here, the specially-designed EFS Recovery Agent can be used to decrypt files. In Windows 2000 the Recovery Agent is represented by either local administrator (when working on a stand-alone computer) or domain administrator (if the computer operates within a domain). In Windows XP and above this had to be done manually. This paper assess the advantages and disadvantages of EFS technology and also review the different options for restoring encrypted data using EFS, in the event of password loss or system failure.