In securing your SharePoint Workspace environment, it’s important to understand the encryption story. The table below summarizes built-in data encryption in SPW 2010:
Workspace type
Is file* data encrypted on-disk?
Is non-file data encrypted on disk?
Is data encrypted over the network?
SharePoint
No**
No***
Groove 2010
Yes
Groove 2007
Shared Folder
No
Yes (e.g. chat)
* This includes files in the Documents and Files tools, as well as file attachments in all other tools.
** On-disk data can be encrypted using the Windows BitLocker Drive Encryption.
*** Data sent over the network between the SharePoint Workspace and the SharePoint servers can be encrypted using SSL, configurable by the server administrator.
On a related note, SharePoint Workspace 2010 supports all three authentication flavors available in SharePoint Server 2010: Single Sign-On, Forms-Based Authentication, and Claims-Based Authentication. You can go here to see Paul Cannon’s post on Single Sign-on.
Alexei Evdokimov, Drew Harris, and Jim McCoy