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Dell is rolling out a new suite of mobile data security solutions for its Latitude line of laptops, including encrypted solid-state drives from Samsung that are due in “the coming months.”
“We think of security in terms of being preventative and protective,” Dell senior product planner Craig Durr told eWEEK. “Preventative tends to be preventing unauthorized access and attacks from viruses and spam, and protective is in regard to protecting the asset itself and also the data.”
In conversations with Dell users, Durr says, “CIOs will say the computer is important, but the data is even more so.”
Research from the Ponemon Institute, sponsored by Dell, revealed that whole-disk encryption is believed to be one of the most effective ways to secure data.
“The value of the solid-state drive is it adds durability to a weak part of the notebook,” said Durr. “You have no moving parts [with an SSD], so you get a more-reliable product with greater durability. And now we’re also overlaying encryption to the product.”
Dell’s new security suite will include:
– The Dell ControlPoint Security Manager, which gathers hardware and security settings within one user interface.
– The Dell ControlVault, which enables Dell Latitude E4200, E4300, E6400 and E6500 notebooks to be configured with a security engine that protects end-user security credentials. A hardware-based solution, it features a dedicated chip for storing and processing user passwords, biometric templates and security codes.
– An Integrated RSA SecurID, which offers two-factor authentication for hardware-level security for the storage of RSA SecurID software tokens and one-time password generation, eliminating the need for a separate hardware token.
“It’s the equivalent of soldering a one-time-password key fob to the motherboard,” said Durr. “You can store credentials and process them outside of the operating system, to help prevent unauthorized access [from things like sniffers].”
User authentication will also be heightened through a contactless smart card reader from HID, along with smart cards and fingerprint readers, enabling organizations to implement multifactor authentication.
The Ponemon Institute reports that 41 percent of employers said that employees’ failure to use proper authentication or passwords represents the largest threat to their organizations’ confidential data.
Security is increasingly being taken more seriously, as more information becomes mobile, information breaches cost companies millions of dollars and customer confidence, and the public, press and government hold businesses to greater levels of accountability.
For example, Massachusetts has a state law in the works, scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, 2010, mandating that businesses holding the personal information of Massachusetts residents be forced to encrypt the data on mobile devices or when wirelessly transmitted.
“These days, accountability is being rolled up to the highest level of business, to the CEO,” says Durr.
On April 16, Lenovo also announced a remote management solution for fully encrypted hard drives.