Alfresco Content Store Security (Encryption needed?)

[subwiz]

We are thinking of using Alfresco for storing critical financial documents controlled by strict ACL rules. This can be configured in Alfresco itself. But we found that Alfresco uses file-system to store documents. We do not know the exact format, but we would like to know that, in a normal configuration, the system admins managing the server running Alfresco, should not be able to get the content of Alfresco hosted documents. Is it the case now?

[mrogers]

You are correct that a system administrator may be able to access the contents of the files.   A determined system administrator would be able to do a lot of damage and snooping of an alfresco system.

You may be able to control access through careful use of your OS security features to run alfresco under a secure account, such that general system administrators do not have access.    But if not  then its probably possible to encrypt the content store, but once again you will need to be careful not to give your administrator access to your encryption keys.

An easier solution may be to encrypt your documents prior to storing them in alfresco.

[subwiz]

An easier solution may be to encrypt your documents prior to storing them in alfresco.

Thanks, we will follow this approach.

[subwiz]

An easier solution may be to encrypt your documents prior to storing them in alfresco.

Thanks, we will follow this approach.

This has a major disadvantage: we will not be able to leverage Alfresco's content search on encrypted content. We are open to other suggestions.

[gengshg]

This actually need customize the alfresco, you would not able to use UI provided by Alfresco.

You have 2 choices, develop you own UI, or, change implementations inside Alfresco's web client.

The point against admin is not a problem, such question exist in every system.

Alfresco's web client assign new node's permission to every one, you could customize this feature (to creator herself), then Alfresco would be safe for you to manage critical content.

Good Luck.

[lesoft]

Hi -

We're looking for a document encryption solution in an Alfresco environment. Would you please share some pointers/tips on implementing document encryption in Alfresco without compromising Lucene full text search and OpenOffice PDF transformation?

Thanks,
Tuan

[gcattwood]

I am also very interested in finding out more about this. I guess one would need encryption on a per user or per company (tenant) basis. Is this possible?