Encryption at rest means the asset files and their metadata are stored on disk, and in backups, in an encrypted form that’s unreadable without the corresponding decryption key \u2014 a protection that holds even if someone gains direct access to the storage medium itself, whether that’s a stolen physical drive or a cloud storage bucket exposed by a misconfiguration. Standard practice is AES-256 encryption applied uniformly across the storage layer.<\/p>\n
The regulatory angle worth knowing is that for HIPAA specifically, properly encrypted Protected Health Information generally falls under a breach notification safe harbor: if PHI is encrypted to the standard specified by HHS guidance and the encryption key wasn’t also compromised, a security incident involving that data may not trigger the same notification obligations as a breach of unencrypted PHI. That’s a concrete, practical reason healthcare-adjacent DAM customers ask specifically about encryption at rest rather than accepting general security assurances.<\/p>\n
The detail that gets glossed over in vendor evaluations is key management: knowing that data is encrypted at rest answers less than knowing who holds the keys. Vendor-managed keys mean the vendor’s own systems and staff, or anyone who compromises them, retain the ability to decrypt customer data \u2014 encryption at rest doesn’t protect against the vendor itself as a risk. Customer-managed or customer-supplied key options close that gap, and it’s specifically the kind of detail regulated customers should confirm rather than assume from a generic “encrypted” claim.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Asset files and metadata stored on disk and in backups in encrypted form, unreadable without the decryption key even if the underlying storage medium is accessed directly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","faq":[{"question":"What does encryption at rest actually protect against?","answer":"It protects the archive if a physical drive is stolen, a backup tape is lost, or a cloud storage bucket is misconfigured \u2014 the data stays unreadable without the key even when storage is compromised."},{"question":"How does encryption at rest relate to HIPAA breach notification?","answer":"Under HIPAA's breach notification safe harbor, a breach involving properly encrypted Protected Health Information generally doesn't trigger the same notification obligations as one involving unencrypted data \u2014 the exposed data is treated as unreadable to unauthorized parties. That protection only holds if the encryption keys weren't compromised too; if an attacker obtains both the files and the keys, the exemption no longer applies. That's why key management, not just the presence of encryption, is what regulated organizations need to verify."},{"question":"What's the standard encryption method used at rest?","answer":"AES-256 is the standard encryption algorithm applied uniformly across storage layers \u2014 disk, backups, and replicated copies of asset files and metadata. It's the encryption strength NIST and HIPAA-aligned compliance guidance call for when rendering data unusable to unauthorized parties, which matters when evaluating whether encrypted PHI qualifies for breach notification safe harbor. On its own, AES-256 only guarantees the data is scrambled \u2014 it says nothing about who holds the key needed to unscramble it, a separate question vendors need to answer."},{"question":"What detail do vendor evaluations often overlook about encryption at rest?","answer":"Most evaluations stop at confirming that data is encrypted and skip the more important question: who holds the decryption keys. When a vendor manages the keys itself, that vendor \u2014 and anyone who compromises the vendor's own systems \u2014 can still decrypt customer data, even though encryption at rest is in place. The presence of encryption alone protects against outside attackers who gain access to raw storage, but it doesn't protect against the vendor as a risk, which is the gap that customer-controlled keys are meant to close."},{"question":"What's the alternative to vendor-managed keys?","answer":"Customer-managed keys \u2014 sometimes called bring-your-own-key or BYOK \u2014 let the customer generate, hold, and control the decryption keys instead of leaving that control entirely with the vendor. The vendor can still encrypt and decrypt data during normal operation, but it doesn't retain independent, standing access to the keys the way it would under vendor-managed encryption. That closes the gap where encryption at rest protects against outside storage breaches but does nothing to prevent the vendor itself, or anyone who compromises the vendor's systems, from reading the data."},{"question":"Why do healthcare and life-sciences DAM customers specifically ask about encryption at rest?","answer":"Because encryption at rest gives them a concrete, practical route to HIPAA's breach notification safe harbor rather than a vague assurance that data is \"secure.\" If PHI stored in the DAM is properly encrypted and the keys stay uncompromised, a storage breach may not trigger the same mandatory notification obligations as an unencrypted breach \u2014 a real difference in regulatory exposure. That's also why these customers push past a vendor's general encryption claim and ask the question that actually determines whether the safe harbor applies: who controls the decryption keys."}],"checked_date":"2026-08-11","sources":[],"kicker":"","fact_checker":0,"reading_time":0,"revisions":[],"seo_title":"Encryption at rest: how a DAM protects stored files and backups","seo_description":"","noindex":false,"related":[2637,2418,2582,2482,2635,2444],"definition":"Asset files and metadata stored on disk and in backups in encrypted form, unreadable without the decryption key even if the underlying storage medium is accessed directly.","why":"Encryption at rest protects the archive if a physical drive is stolen, a backup tape is lost, or a cloud storage bucket is misconfigured to allow unintended access \u2014 the data on disk remains unreadable without the key even when the storage itself is compromised. It's also legally relevant for regulated content: under HIPAA's breach notification safe harbor, a breach of properly encrypted PHI generally does not trigger the same notification obligations as a breach of unencrypted data, which is one concrete reason healthcare and life-sciences DAM customers push specifically for encryption at rest, not just general security assurances.","example_rows":[{"field":"Storage compromised, no encryption","values":"Misconfigured cloud bucket exposes raw files directly readable by anyone with the URL"},{"field":"Storage compromised, encryption at rest","values":"Same exposure yields only encrypted ciphertext, unreadable without the separately held decryption key"}],"mistake":"Relying on a storage provider's default encryption (\"our cloud provider encrypts everything\") without knowing who actually holds the decryption keys \u2014 vendor-managed keys mean the vendor, and anyone who compromises the vendor's own systems, can still decrypt the data, which matters for regulated customers who specifically require customer-managed keys.","deep_link":""},"silo":[24],"class_list":["post-2556","glossary","type-glossary","status-publish","hentry","silo-glossary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/glossary\/2556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/glossary"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/glossary"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/glossary\/2556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3541,"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/glossary\/2556\/revisions\/3541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"silo","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/picajet.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/silo?post=2556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}