New IEEE 1619 Disk and Tape Encryption Standards

The Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) has approved two new storage
security standards, setting the stage for a new generation of interoperable
and highly secure storage solutions powered by encryption technology from
security market leaders such as Hifn.

"Many issues in security and storage result from the lack of standards so
the interoperability enabled with the IEEE 1619 developments is a huge value
proposition for customers to deploy security across a diverse set of storage
solutions from multiple vendors," said Russell Dietz, Chief Technology Officer
at Hifn. "These new encryption standards were started by Tier 1 storage OEMs,
and driven by Hifn, because standards have become imperative for the market to
grow, to deliver simplified, broad, secured storage solutions."

The first standard, IEEE 1619 "Standard for Cryptographic Protection
of Data on Block-Oriented Storage Devices", addresses data storage on disk
drives. The second approved standard, IEEE 1619.1 "Standard for
Authenticated Encryption with Length Expansion for Storage Devices", deals
with data encryption on enterprise-class tape drives. The new standards
provide a high level of interoperability for disk and tape products from
different vendors, ensuring that data encrypted on a disk or tape drive from
one vendor can be accurately decrypted and read back on devices from other
vendors. One of the first commercial products to benefit from the 1619
standardization work is the new LTO-4 tape technology, utilizing encryption
mechanisms and encoding models that are recognized by IEEE 1619.1.

Hifn was one of more than a dozen companies that actively participated in
the IEEE Security in Storage Working Group that crafted the new disk and tape
encryption standards. The company’s strong support of storage and security
standardization is nothing new and is the latest example of the company’s
market and technology leadership with a 10-year history of developing
high-performance cryptographic processors. Hifn is committed to being an
active participant in nurturing emerging standards related to securing
information, whether the information is in transit across the network or data
at rest residing on removable or fixed media systems.

"Our commitment is to making sure customers can use security in their
storage systems," said Dietz. "We’ve simplified the installation and
deployment process for encryption ASPs to make security happen in storage
systems. By also supporting storage security standardization Hifn is working
to accelerate the use of encryption for data at rest."

Hifn’s full line of Applied Services Processors as well as its board-level
security acceleration products currently support, and are compliant with, the
encryption algorithms specified in the IEEE 1619 standards. Hifn’s processor
architecture leverages a zero-impact design making it a simple process for
OEMs to quickly add standardized security functionality to their storage
products.

Hifn

Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc.