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How encryption can save your bacon |
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| Written by Rosie Lombardi, on Tue-December-2009 |
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News headlines about sensitive data falling into the wrong hands because an employee lost a laptop in a taxi cab send shivers down executive spines.
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.
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