Intel, Seagate and WinMagic Demo Combined Solutions

WinMagic, Inc., in full-disk encryption (FDE), announced at the RSA Conference in San Francisco that it has teamed with Intel Corporation to support Intel Anti-Theft Technology (Intel AT) in its latest version of SecureDoc. WinMagic also announced that it has teamed with Seagate Technology at RSA to showcase how SecureDoc supports the Seagate Secure Self-Encrypting Hard Drives. Intel, Seagate, and WinMagic demonstrated these pioneering new data-security solutions for the first time at the WinMagic booth.

WinMagic and Intel demonstrated SecureDoc with support for Intel Anti-Theft Technology, which is now available in select systems with the all new 2010 Intel Core processor family. As an added layer of protection, and acting as a laptop theft-deterrent, Intel AT provides the benefit of issuing a ‘poison pill’ to lost or stolen laptops whether they are connected to the internet or not. Laptops equipped with Intel AT have hardware-based intelligence to detect potential theft situations and respond according to an IT policy. When a notebook is reported lost or stolen, Intel AT also allows organizations to remotely disable the computing platform and lock access to its data. SecureDoc adds full-time sector-by-sector FDE which ensures data is protected at all times as well as central management of Intel AT. This ensures data cannot be accessed in the time it takes to report the loss and disable the laptop – even if the hard drive is removed and installed on another computing system.

If the laptop is recovered, the notebook can easily be returned to its pre-theft state via a typical help desk challenge/response scenario. Since the data on the recovered laptop is not deleted and the protection is non-destructive, it can be retrieved securely upon routine pre-boot authentication – and the hard drive remains protected by SecureDoc the entire time.

A notebook secured with the latest version of SecureDoc can now take advantage of Intel AT deterrent mechanisms to enhance security and set a new benchmark for positive end-user experience and ease of management for both standard and self-encrypting drives. Combining the two technologies will ensure organizations can comply with privacy and security regulations by making it simple to manage their entire suite of security functionalities in a heterogeneous IT environment from a single central SecureDoc Enterprise Server management console.

“This collaboration with WinMagic provides new ease-of-management and protection for data security,” said George Thangadurai, general manager of Intel PC Client Services Division. “Now organizations looking to deter PC theft and, more importantly, protect the data inside – the loss of which can have very serious consequences to a business – have a simple and intuitive solution that seamlessly combines the two technologies.”

WinMagic and Seagate will demonstrate for the first time how SecureDoc supports and manages the Seagate Secure Self-Encrypting Hard Drives, which provide a highly-secure computing environment for independent data processing and private code execution in certified software applications. SecureDoc adds organization-wide encryption key management, multi-factor pre-boot user authentication, file/folder encryption and other capabilities that lock down digital information assets. This provides organizations with the flexibility to deploy any combination of hardware/software-based encryption, or to transition between the two, with full transparency for users and a consistent management interface for administrators, which makes it easy to customize data protection to meet any security protocol and to “future-proof” investment in encryption.

“Seagate Secure disk drive technology is a security platform combining strong, completely automated hardware-based full-disk encryption and security, with a programmatic interface that makes it easy to add other software security applications,” said Michael Danielson, Director of Security Software Engineering at Seagate. “WinMagic’s SecureDoc supports Seagate Secure hard drives to deliver robust data protection, flexibility and end-user transparency under a single, extensible management console and policy framework,” Danielson continued. “Our combined goal is to reduce or eliminate the risks associated with unnecessary data loss or data exposure from unprotected desktops, notebooks and other portable storage media.”

WinMagic also demonstrated full support for TCG’s OPAL specification drives and its all-new software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution. At the same time, the company debuted new features for SecureDoc’s Mac OS X (including Snow Leopard) and Windows 7 – which, in response to feedback from U.S. government agencies, integrate seamlessly with CAC and PIV cards.

“According to the 2008 Ponemon Cost of a Data Breach studies, compromised customer records cost U.S. companies $200 per record and U.K. companies £60 per record,” said Thi Nguyen-Huu, CEO and President, WinMagic, Inc. “The best way to eliminate this risk is for vendors to work together in order to provide complete end-to-end data security solutions,” Nguyen-Huu continued. “Our collaboration with Intel and Seagate will make it simpler for organizations to implement comprehensive data protection practices to ensure lost or stolen devices don’t provide unwanted access to company data.”

WinMagic’s SecureDoc enterprise-class ‘always-on’ full-disk encryption is compatible with Microsoft Windows, Mac and Linux platforms and protects all data stored on servers, desktops, laptops and removable media, such as USB thumb drives and CD/DVDs. In the event that a password is forgotten, or if the user is not available, centralized escrow and management of encryption keys ensure that critical data can still be accessed.