Trusted Computing Group

Earlier this year, we talked about the growing support for TCG's Opal specification for self-encrypting drives.

These drives offer many advantages: encryption is transparent to the user and happens on the fly, without system impact. Research by Trusted Strategies has proven that there is no performance hit. Keys remain protected in hardware. Drives can be erased in microseconds for re-provisioning or disposal.

And, many such drives are becoming available.

Support for the Opal drives for notebook PC applications:
Toshiba

Hitachi GST self-encrypting drives

Samsung solid state drives

Seagate Momentus self-encrypting drives

CryptoMill drive management software

Guardian Edge drive management software

Wave Systems drive management software; Embassy Trusted Drive Manager

WinMagic Inc. drive management software; SecureDoc FDE; SecureDoc for Mac; SecureDoc Enterprise Server

Support for TCG's Enterprise drive specifications:
Toshiba's MBF2600RE drive, with more information on encryption and drives

Seagate Secure self-encrypting enterprise drives

Hitachi Ultrastar Enterprise self-encrypting drives

Drives are starting to appear in systems from leading vendors. If you don't see them from your vendor, ask! Costs are dropping and there is no reason not to have this built-in protection against embarrassing, costly and career-ending data losses.

Watch this blog for more updates, and if you are attending industry events this fall, look for talks on SEDs. A list of TCG speakers is at
http://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/media_room/events.