Certification for Self-Encrypting Drives by Trusted Computing Group

Trusted Computing Group (TCG) announced a certification program for self-encrypting drives, or SEDs, based on its Opal SSC specifications, for TCG members.

The group also will host a workshop to refine test suites for certification and to provide an interoperability lab for storage vendors. The May 10-11 event in Milpitas, CA, will allow TCG members and non-members to test their products with other products, and to learn more about the test suites.

Formal certification will require compliance to test cases as verified by a TCG-certified test suite, which will be available in the near future, and a security evaluation based on Common Criteria Full Disk Encryption (FDE) Encryption Engine (EE) collaborative Protection Profile (cPP).

Later this year, drive makers can become certified via one of three paths, which will only be available to members:

• A TCG-hosted storage compliance workshop

• Third-party test labs

• Self-certification

Today, almost all SSDs, enterprise and HDD drives are self-encrypting, and are widely used in computers, mobile devices and data centers.

SEDs based on TCG’s specifications provide:

• Security: encryption key(s) never leaves the device

• Ease of use: encryption is an integral part of the drive electronics

• Transparency: drives are always encrypting; users cannot turn off encryption

• Performance: SEDs operate at full drive speeds with no impact on drive performance

• Efficacy: SEDs are a mature and time-tested technology vetted by storage vendors and related suppliers

• Scalability: SEDs are proven to scale smoothly from individual use to the largest distributed data centers in the world.

Vendors interested in certification via membership in TCG can find organization info at this link.