# Encrypting data at rest **URL:** \ **Category:** Sysadmins\ **Tags:** explanation\ **Created:** [January 5, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/encrypting-data-at-rest/23693 "2015-01-05T22:13:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 4
**Author:** ![sam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/sam/32/102149_2.png) [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2015, 11:37pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/encrypting-data-at-rest/23693/4 "2015-01-05T23:37:29Z")
That is basically #2 > Data Partition Encryption > On Linux, encryption can be layered on top of a file system mount using a “loopback device”. This allows an entire file system partition be encrypted on disk, and decrypted by the operating system. On FreeBSD, the equivalent facility is called GEOM Based Disk Encryption, or gbde. > This mechanism prevents unencrypted data from being read from the drives if the drives or the entire computer is stolen. This does not protect against attacks while the file system is mounted, because when mounted, the operating system provides an unencrypted view of the data. However, to mount the file system, you need some way for the encryption key to be passed to the operating system, and sometimes the key is stored somewhere on the host that mounts the disk. The other option for encryption is not applicable Encryption For Specific Columns requires application level changes --- _[View the full topic](https://meta.discourse.org/t/encrypting-data-at-rest/23693)._