Seagate recently launched two portable drives with very different personalities. Why? One size no longer fits all. But which drive is right for you?
Seagate FreeAgent Go - a great personal drive. It’s the thinnest portable drive in the world, with up to 500 GB and a desktop dock.
I use the FreeAgent Go for my personal data. I can drop the Go into a dock at work and easily use the files on my work PC. I don’t have to mix my personal and work content, but have access to both.
Maxtor BlackArmor – a great business drive. It’s the safest drive in the world, with government-grade 128-bit AES encryption and up to 320 GB.
I use the BlackArmor for backing up my work files. I keep it at home as a simple disaster recovery scheme. There is absolutely no risk of anyone accessing the data without the password, even if it were to fall out of my bag at a hacker’s convention.
Solving the “data on the loose” problem starts with safer loose data
Despite an almost daily cadence of news stories about exposed customer data, most IT departments seem resigned to the fact that their number might be called. It’s just fate, right? What are they supposed to do – ban thumb drives? Restrict notebook PCs to the office?
New products from Dell, Seagate and others are finally providing realistic solutions. For a small premium to standard notebooks and mobile storage devices, companies can now make their employees data loss-proof with self-encrypted disk drive technology like Seagate’s Seagate Secure.
Blesssed by the NSA
These notebooks and portable drives can still be lost or stolen, but the data is 100% protected with government-grade 128-bit AES encryption. The incident remains an inconvenient hassle rather than a newspaper headline.
Unlike software solutions, the disk drives in these products are encrypted automatically so employees can’t turn it off or forget to turn it on. There is no performance penalty. Laptop passwords can be centrally managed with McAfee’s ePolicy Orchestrator and other vendors’ products.
While mobile encryption doesn’t plug every hole in your defenses (malicious or misguided workers, for instance), it does provide a foundation of security that you can build upon.
Let’s hear from users (or panners) of this technology – what do you think?
McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator adds self-encrypting PC drives to its bag of security tricks
There’s a security industry axiom that says “It’s better to place the guard next to the jewels.” With McAfeee’s latest move, it looks like the information security industry is taking that to heart by bringing self-encrypting disk drives (SED) into the mainstream mix of security infrastructure elements.
Unlike software-based encryption, SED drives like Seagate’s Momentus FDE drives encrypt everything written to a drive, at the drive. This takes away potential ‘back doors’ or access points to PC data and encrypts at full speed. It makes encryption hackproof and “free” from a performance and individual PC management standpoint.
What’s been lacking are the hooks in some enterprise management tools like McAfee’s ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) that simplify management of self-encrypting PCs. Wave Systems, SECUDE International and others already support Momentus SED.
McAfee’s announcement makes SED an easy-to-add security tool for a much broader market. Expect rapid growth in SED as more companies place more guards next to their digital crown jewels.
Don’t agree? Read this, then just try and convince me otherwise.
The scariest part is how many people, processes and organizations had to drop the ball on data security for this to happen. Data loss these days is no longer a scandal – it’s about being human.
Storage vendors, please hurry! The safety of my personal information is in your hands!
Granted, PC encryption is just one of many changes that are needed, as crooks can and do steal data from places other than PCs. But basic hardware-encrypted data is an essential foundational security step that needs to be adopted ASAP.
Take the Oops factor out of the security equation with mobile encryption
The UK government’s data security woes continue, the latest a misplaced USB stick containing detailed data on 10,000 serious offenders -and all 84,000 prisoners in England. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, in charge of UK prisons, is the Embarrassed Minister of the Month when it comes to UK data security.
Of course there will be lots of hand-wringing about this persistent trend. The reality is that while processes can be improved, people will be people; stuff happens.
Encryption makes lost drives no-news events
Mandate fully encrypted mobile storage like Seagate BlackArmor and the UK government will at least “oops” proof data on the move.
Bruce Wayne would need petabytes of storage to support his nocturnal hobby
I saw The Dark Knight. The thing I like most about this movie and its predecessor Batman Begins is their plausibility. Unlike most superhero movies, they are able to account for the hero’s “powers” with (mostly) credible technology. Not cheap or easy, but almost feasible.
So…what are Batman’s storage requirements? (more…)
Here’s a thorough article on disk drive-based encryption, with comparisons to software-based encryption. Key takeaway: if you encrypt within the disk drive, there are no external access points for an intruder to exploit.
What’s the real-world risk of someone going to such lengths? Someone could break down my locked door at my house as well.
The “no-worries” benefit
A major commercial value of hacker-proof encryption on a business PC is the “no-worries” benefit. If a disk-encrypted notebook with customer records on board is lost or stolen, there is no credible risk of the data ever being retrieved. Whether or not the notebook is found, the business is safe from becoming a media poster child for lax security of their customers’ personal information.
Seagate announced its new Maxtor BlackArmor secure portable drive today. 160GB, full AES encryption. Everything stored on this puppy is automatically encrypted and virtually hack-proof.
Seagate’s taken a leading position in truly secure storage devices. This drive follows the already-released Momentus FDE secure notebook drive.
This is an easy add-on solution for desktop or notebook customers. Worry-free mobile storage!
Encryption is the key to taking the sting out of a data breach
Data breaches are painful for those whose data was lost, but they hurt everyone involved. Here’s Computerworld’s article about what companies that lose data need to do once the breach is discovered. Not surprisingly, it varies by state – meaning a breach can require by law a byzantine notification process. But that’s probably the least painful part of such a security lapse, as TJ Maxx and many others will testify.
The breach that exposes the consumer hurts the business entrusted with the consumer’s data, which hurts the vendor entrusted with keeping that data safe. It pays to be very thoughtful and deliberate when designing and deploying a secure data architecture for your clients. Encryption is an essential component, per Computerworld:
“Encryption is the single most effective way to avoid the negative business impact of data breaches,” says [Robert] Scott [managing partner at the Dallas office of Scott & Scott LLP, a law and IT services firm]. “Under most privacy statutes, if you have encryption, you get a free pass from notification.”
Seagate is delivering full disk encryption (FDE) solutions, with a laptop FDE drive available today and desktop and enterprise security solutions in the works. FDE is seen by many as the most efficient and effective encryption technology.
Proper use of encryption technology can make the difference between a business-ending scandal and a correctable minor incident that makes a solution provider into a hero.
