Webroot SecureAnywhere and Encryption Software (Bitlocker, Dell Data Protection, TrueCrypt, etc.)

  • 1 June 2015
  • 2 replies
  • 1133 views

Userlevel 5
Hello, my name is Johnny and I work for Webroot in the Enterprise Support department.  In the past few weeks there has been quite a bit of discussion around encryption software and Webroot.   This topic has been coming up more in the office, on and in forums, and in speaking to customers and prospects though the calls, tickets, etc.  
 
I would like to raise a discussion around the topic and share my findings.
 
About two weeks ago one of my colleagues ran some tests with Webroot on fully encrypted drives using a variety of encryption software and operating systems. He concluded that there was no negative interaction in any of the cases. Specifically he tested Bitlocker (on 64-bit Windows 7, 8, and 8.1) and Dell Data Protection (on 64-bit Windows 7).
 
My experience with Webroot has shown Webroot is compatible with all encryption software.  In almost all cases, we work right out of the box without any configuration needed.  In rare circumstances I have seen Dell Data Protection (DDP) and Webroot not co-exist until exceptions are in place within DDP to exclude the Webroot files and directories. These specific exclusions are:
 
-^%ENV:systemdrive%Program FilesWebroot
-^%ENV:systemdrive%Program Files (x86)Webroot
-^%ENV:systemdrive%WindowsSystem32WRusr.dll;.dll
-^%ENV:systemdrive%WindowsSysWow64WRusr.dll;.dll
-^%ENV:systemdrive%WindowsSystem32DriversWRKrn.sys;.sys
-^%ENV:systemdrive%ProgramDataWRData
 
(Note: I have seen certain versions of DDP require different formatting around their exceptions, to please refer to the DDP knowledge base to confirm that they are correct for your version of DDP)
 
In the rare cases where Webroot is not working well with encryption software (even DDP) and exceptions are required, the monitoring of the files associated with the encryption software is almost certainly at fault.  Since the encryption software is attempting to encrypt everything, that can cause conflicts with the WSA client.  And even though white listing through Webroot (by adding Good Overrides) may help, I still suggest excluding the WSAB directories from encryption if possible.  Having encryption software interfere with Webroot may cause problems in general.
 
Back to the main purpose of this post. The Webroot staff and I would like to hear your experience with Webroot SecureAnywhere and encryption software. Have you run into problems? What encryption software have you used Webroot with and how successfully was it used? Did it require any special setup to get the two to function right together? Have you run into any weird problems?
 
We would love to hear  your experience and assist with any problems you may have come across.
 
Thank you,
Johnny S.
Webroot Enterprise Support Engineer

2 replies

My situation is that I am using Webroot Secure Anywhere, on a new computer running W10.  Plenty of speed and capacity.
 
I need to add encryption, but this computer, I learned, doesn't have the required "TMP Module", so I'm out of luck regarding Bitlocker (which had been my intent).    I need "add on" encryption which would be a good fit, including compatibilty with Webroot.   It's one to thing to say, "it's compatible", but perhaps a different thing to say it's "really" compatible.  Any suggestions as to what I might look at?
Userlevel 7
Badge +56
We should work fine with any full disk encryption system you use. This article has some good comparisons on what's out there:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2304851/so-long-truecrypt-5-encryption-alternatives-that-can-lock-down-your-data.html

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