Organizations with mobile workforces are looking for encryption solutions that will protect their data but won’t give users and IT departments extra headaches managing complicated keys and algorithms to get their work done.

Export Development Canada (EDC), Canada’s export credit agency, has tackled the problem with SecureDoc, a full-disk encryption solution developed by WinMagic, a Mississauga-based provider.

The agency introduced a new mobile workforce strategy at the end of 2008 in conjunction with its equipment refresh program, and is replacing its 1,200 desktop computers with laptops and tablet PCs.

“We have staff in over 200 markets abroad, and we needed to ensure we had solid encryption capabilities,” says Dave McNulty, manager of telecom and network management.

The EDC decided to go with SecureDoc because it was the product selected for deployment to about 2000 workers in a government study that reviewed a number of products, he adds.  

With so many staff on the move, a key requirement for the EDC was an encryption solution that didn’t involve IT staff installing software on each computer individually. “We wanted an enterprise solution that allowed us to manage multiple computers from one central management server and push updates out to them,” says Joe Gonzalez, senior network analyst at the EDC.

SecureDoc also offers other features that minimize calls and trips to the help desk by desperate users who forget their passwords. “Users pick three unique questions when their computers are initially configured, and it gives them the self-service control to reset their own passwords,” says Gonzalez.

Another bonus is that the software’s workings are transparent to users. EDC’s laptops work exactly the same with encryption as they would without encryption.

“It prompts users for their name on login, and that’s it. We didn’t receive a single user complaint and we’ve already completed the rollout of 900 laptops,” says McNulty.

WinMagic’s hardware-based approach to encryption offers many advantages compared with traditional software-based encryption, explains Garry McCracken, VP of R&D at WinMagic.