Business
Seagate adds encryption to all drives
Seagate is to build automatic encryption into all its enterprise hard drives, the company announced at Storage Expo 2007 in London.
All enterprise drives will be fitted with Seagate’s Full Disk Encryption (FDE) as standard.
(TCG) is designing a security protocol for the drives, and the IEEE 1619.3 Key Management Subcommittee is setting up a management standard to ensure interoperability.
Seagate’s move is in response to growing UK government pressure for better data security practices in the industry. Making drive encryption automatic has already been recommended by the US National Security Agency (NSA).
“The fact that the NSA has been such a strong supporter and active participant in the TCG’s efforts around standards for device-level FDE speaks volumes,” said Seagate chief executive Bill Watkins.
Another advantage of encryption is to protect data once the drives are retired and junked.
“Drive disposal in particular has always been one of the most challenging elements of the data security lifecycle.” Even with secure disposal processes in place, misplacement, mislabeling and theft still occur, which can result in significant losses, penalties and fines.
“Eliminating the risk of compromise from the source is one approach that can significantly reduce the complexity of managing sensitive data,” he said.
