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Aberdeen Group Report Underscores The Need For All
Organizations To Incorporate Encryption As Part Of A Complete Endpoint Security
Strategy
WinMagic Co-Sponsors Aberdeen Group’s Global
Endpoint Data Protection Survey and Report which Finds that Most Organizations
Studied are Looking to Implement Greater Endpoint Security to Reduce Data Loss,
Theft, and Misuse on Corporate Endpoints
WinMagic® Inc., an innovative leader in full-disk encryption,
today announced that the recent Global Endpoint Data Protection survey from
Aberdeen Group has further underscored the need for all organizations to
incorporate encryption as part of a complete endpoint security strategy.
"Most organizations are aware that unprotected laptops, desktops, and removable
storage devices represent a serious risk to the network," noted Aberdeen Group
Vice President and Research Director, Mounil Patel. "The majority of the
respondents to our survey have implemented or are in the process of implementing
policies to help mitigate these risks, however, more than 85 percent had little
or no visibility into the compliance of end users with their organization's
overall endpoint data privacy policies,” Patel continued. "These results back up
the need for an endpoint data protection solution that can enact specific
encryption policies on a per-user or per-machine basis."
Boston-based, Aberdeen Group polled 135 enterprise security and technology
executives in the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, analyzing the value
placed on endpoint data protection and exploring the approaches and technologies
organizations utilize to protect sensitive information on mobile computers,
handhelds, and removable storage devices. The survey found that executives
recognized the risks associated with today’s continues exchange of data,
specifically citing employee, contractor, and business partner leaks as well as
the theft of organizational computers as the greatest risks to unauthorized
exposure of sensitive or proprietary information.
“Today, if an organization cannot share information with
partners, customers, and colleagues it simply cannot be competitive,” commented
Thi Nguyen-Huu, CEO & President, WinMagic Inc. “But, although being able to
email a colleague or customer company documents or copy sensitive corporate
files to a removable storage device to take home enables today’s dynamic
workforce to be more productive, the ease of access to company information from
a rapidly-increasing number of endpoints also poses significant data security
concerns – especially when trying to protect the ever-increasing number of
mobile devices.”
Numerous reports of laptop and other mobile device thefts over
the last two years have highlighted the consequences of not protecting data on
endpoint devices and have resulted in an increasing number of state and federal
data protection regulations. Over fifty percent of the states in the U.S. have
enacted data privacy protection and security breach notification regulations,
and a consistent theme of many of these laws is that encrypted information
remains exempt from public notification requirements and associated criminal and
civil penalties. Similar regulations are presently being considered in Europe,
Japan, Australia, Chile, and Argentina.
Built on the PKCS#11 standards, and featuring the AES 256-bit
encryption algorithm, WinMagic’s SecureDoc full-disk encryption meets the
requirements of all global data protection legislations by providing
market-leading speed of encryption that not only prevents access to the entire
hard drive, but even prevents access to a hard drive that is installed as a
slave drive. Access to the hard drive can only be obtained at pre-boot through
end-user authentication via any combination of a password, hardware token, smart
card, biometric device, or PKI (Public Key Infrastructure). But, SecureDoc’s
real benefit is that it can provide this high level of data security without
affecting either the end user or the system. Once the hard drive is encrypted,
data is simultaneously encrypted and decrypted as information is being written
and read off of the hard drive. As a result, the process is transparent to the
user, and user productivity is not sacrificed.
In fact, WinMagic believes that as far as an end-user is
concerned “an encrypted hard drive should behave exactly the same way as a
non-encrypted drive”.
SecureDoc also makes it simple for users to automatically
encrypt USB drives, CD/DVD, Flash Cards, SD Cards, Multimedia Cards, Micro
Drives, and other removable media. Additionally, removable media can be
transferred to other mobile devices and accessed through the SecureDoc PDA
user's key, protecting a user's vital information from unauthorized access. This
functionality will facilitate system administrators to utilize one encryption
solution for LANs, WANs, and GANs, eliminating the administration nightmare
resulting from having to manage different security solutions for different
devices.
SecureDoc’s additional functionality includes:
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Ensures maintained and sustained integrity during the
hard-drive encryption process, regardless if interrupted by power failure,
etc.
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Supports enterprise features such as remote deployment,
remote challenge response one-time password recovery, and remote control
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Provides data recovery in case of virus infection (makes
restoring encrypted disk as easy as restoring unencrypted disk)
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Encrypts every portion of the hard drive – not leaving any
residual bytes unencrypted should the hard drive be partitioned
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Ensures encryption of the entire hard drive regardless of
bad sectors or whether the hard drive needs to be defragmented
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Ensures users can still use utility functions such as Ghost
WinMagic’s SecureDoc Enterprise Server edition makes it simple to deploy and
manage encryption for hundreds of thousands of users. Remote features permit
adding, removing, or augmenting users and profiles as well as allowing password
recovery and integration with Active Directory and other LDAP servers such as
PKI, and Novell.
About WinMagic Inc.
Founded in 1997, WinMagic develops full-disk encryption software. WinMagic’s
SecureDoc full-disk encryption suite provides unmatched protection of data
stored on desktops, laptops, and other mobile devices by employing
authentication from password to hardware token, TPM, biometrics, and PKI
commencing right at pre-boot. WinMagic’s award-winning product suite, which
consists of SecureDoc, SecureDoc Enterprise Server, Compartmental SecureDoc,
SecureDoc Mobile, and SecureDoc Personal Edition, meets the requirements of even
the most security-conscious users by focusing on concrete policy-driven security
features while still offering unparalleled flexibility which incorporates the
Unicode Standard. Utilizing Public Key Cryptographic Standard PKCS #11
(Cryptographic Token Interface Standard) from the ground up for extreme
adaptability, the SecureDoc line has earned an impressive list of validations
including NIST Cryptographic Module Validation, FIPS 140-2 Level 1 & 2, and is
scheduled to achieve the Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL-4)
certification in early 2007.Headquartered in Mississauga (Toronto), ON Canada,
WinMagic operates through direct and indirect channel support in over 43
countries. For more information on products or services, please call
1-888-879-5879, or email info@WinMagic.com.
SecureDoc, SecureDoc Enterprise Server, and SecureDoc Central Database are
trademarks of WinMagic, Inc. Other products mentioned herein may be trademarks
and/or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Press Contact:
Michael L. O’Keefe
Communication Strategies, Inc.
Telephone: (416) 760-0100
mokeeffe@communicationstrategiesinc.net
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