Wave Systems Corp. (fka WAVXQ)

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Vendors ship self-encrypting hard drives

http://www.itexaminer.com/vendors-ship-self-encrypting-hard-drives.aspx
Automatically secures and erases data in milliseconds

By Aharon Etengoff in San Francisco @ Friday, March 13, 2009 7:08 AM

Vendors have reportedly begun shipping self-encrypting hard drives based on specifications formulated by the Trusted Computing Group (TCG).

TCG's standards allow manufacturers to design self-encrypting storage devices capable of automatically securing and erasing data in milliseconds.

'TCG's new specifications for self-encrypting drives give users an easy, transparent way to protect important data on laptop PCs and in data centres. By purchasing systems with these drives, user data will be protected if the system is lost or stolen,' Seagate spokesperson Robert Thibadeau told IT Examiner. 'Self-encrypting drives also help enterprises comply with various data protection regulations and allow them to re-use drives more easily. All of these benefits come with no impact on system performance, which has been an issue with software-based encryption.'

Rob Enderle, president of Enderle Group, concurred.

'TCG's new storage security specifications and resulting drives from the vendors that support them have been needed for some time and address a number of high-performance, interoperability, and security concerns. This change represents a significant improvement for the storage industry and will benefit vendors as well as users who must protect their data,' said Enderle.

According to TCG, placing cryptographic operations in an actual drive ensures that the unit is always encrypted and protected by hardware that 'cannot be observed by other parts of the system.' In addition, self-encrypting drives do not interfere with system maintenance, compression, de-duplication, or end-to-end integrity metrics. TGC's specification supports AES and other cryptographic algorithms, as well as optional security features added by third-parties.

It should be noted that Fujitsu has already demonstrated drives based on TCG's Opal self-encrypting drive specification, while Seagate is working with IBM and LSI Corporation on data centre storage devices supporting the new standard. X