Post #1912606

2026-05-03 11:07 UTC

Is there any point in encrypting a virtual server disk? When needed, a hosting provider can just take a RAM dump and extract the encryption key, or at least regexp-match interesting files from the page cache, right? Also, how much is the performance / resource usage overhead of a full-disk encryption? #askfedi #linux #encryption

Replies (3)

@fox@social.hostnetwork.xyz 2026-05-03 11:42

@darkcat09@gts.dc09.xyz why would a hosting provider go through all that?

Open ##1912605
@salty@zwiebel.social 2026-05-03 11:24

@darkcat09@gts.dc09.xyz Encryption at rest is generally good and the performance impact is pretty negligible. Of course it doesn’t really make sense as a countermeasure against your VPS host. If you do have the need for storing or processing sensitive information, find a VM host that offers encrypted VMs (both intel and AMD support running VMs with encrypted RAM so not even the supervisor can see what your VM is doing). But also think about decommissioning your VPS. If your storage is already encrypted, you don’t have to wipe any data. Just shut down the VM and cancel the contract.

Open ##2433730
@skobkin@gts.skobk.in 2026-05-03 13:44

@darkcat09@gts.dc09.xyz If physical disk fails and your provider will replace it, you'll know that your data is not recoverable from it. No protection from targeted attack when key is in the memory though.

Open ##2433731