Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi GST) and SECUDE International AG today announced plans to jointly provide commercial notebook users and storage administrators an encryption solution that helps safeguard data in the event of system theft or loss. The combined solution uses Hitachi Travelstar 5K500.B hard drives and FinallySecure Enterprise from SECUDE.
The use of encryption technology is growing rapidly, as notebooks continue to emerge as the primary PC for the home and office. Because they are frequently used as a repository for sensitive personal and business information, guarding against system theft and loss is of primary importance. The high cost of identity theft looms large for consumers, while corporations are at risk of data breaches that could result in legal action and significant expense.
“Hitachi is a leader in data protection. In fact, we've been providing Bulk Data Encryption as an optional feature on our popular Travelstar mobile hard drives for four generations,” said Brendan Collins, vice president, Product Marketing, Hitachi GST. “Our collaboration with SECUDE will now enable customers to further safeguard their notebook PCs by providing them with integrated security capabilities, such as simplified key management, remote drive configuration and drive decommissioning.”
“By working with Hitachi, we can bring the benefits of the FinallySecure Enterprise to customers everywhere,” said Tristan Kromer, Vice President of Data Protection Division, SECUDE. “If a notebook is lost or stolen, FinallySecure can erase the hard drive remotely or just temporarily decommission it. Our intuitive user interface and synchronization with Active Directory allows companies to easily protect their data, even when they cannot protect their notebook.”
The FinallySecure software provides total data-at-rest protection by combining hardware- and software-based technologies, in accordance with the TCG Opal specification. FinallySecure offers migration from single user to enterprise and software to hardware, all with central management.
Travelstar 5K500.B
The Travelstar 5K500.B features optional Bulk Data Encryption (BDE) for hard-drive-level data security. The drive was also the first in the industry to meet the forthcoming Opal specification established by the Trusted Computing Group (TCG), an organization focused on developing open industry standards for security hardware and software.
The TCG Opal specification implemented in the Travelstar 5K500.B supports Pre-Boot Authentication (PBA) in hardware, and up to four separate encrypted data ranges with multiple user and administrative authentication credentials. It also speeds and simplifies the drive re-deployment process. By deleting the encryption key, the data is rendered unreadable, thereby eliminating the need for time-consuming data-overwrite.
The combined use of an encrypted hard drive and security software brings about significant performance improvements, as the system’s central processing unit (CPU) can be dedicated to running the operating system and applications, while data encryption fully resides on the hard drive. This becomes especially important for notebook PCs, where portability and low power consumption may limit the use of powerful CPUs.
SECUDE has designed its FinallySecure Enterprise to be compatible with TCG Opal-compliant hard drives, giving IT managers the ability to implement security solutions based on an industry standard.
Hitachi’s latest Travelstar hard drive delivers 500GB of storage capacity in a standard 2.5-inch notebook form factor. In addition to advanced encryption functionality, the drive has a number of eco-friendly features, such as halogen-free design and a read/write power specification that is the lowest in the industry.
The AES implementation in Hitachi BDE has received Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 197 certification from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (for additional information, please visit
http://csrc.nist.gov/groups/STM/cavp...s/aesval.html).
07-01-2009
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