SanDisk Adds Third‑Party Security Support for X300s SSD

MILPITAS, Calif., May 13, 2014 – SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), a global leader in flash storage solutions, today announced the inaugural members of its broad ecosystem of independent software vendors (ISV) for security management. This unique ecosystem provides SanDisk customers with fully certified solutions to ease the deployment and management of the newly announced SanDisk X300s SSD, the company’s first self-encrypting SSD based on TCG Opal 2.0 specifications, within their corporate environments. SanDisk is proud to provide compatible solutions from leading ISV partners including Absolute SecureDrive™, Check Point Full Disk Encryption, Microsoft BitLocker for Encrypted Hard Drive, Wave Systems EMBASSY® Security Center, and WinMagic’s SecureDoc™.

“Our X300s SSD ISV ecosystem enables a centralized encryption management solution for scalable and cost-effective deployment of self-encrypting drives,” said Tarun Loomba, vice president of client storage solutions marketing at SanDisk. “These solution providers will allow administrators to encrypt data, institute policies, and audit the end point for compliance. Our breadth of partners also ensures that the SanDisk X300s SSD can be a scalable solution for companies ranging from SMBs to large enterprises.”

Today’s increasingly mobile workforce and BYOD environment, combined with the elevated security threat landscape, is forcing corporations of all sizes to reassess the value of incorporating encryption at the device level. According to an InformationWeek Data Encryption Survey, only 38 percent of corporations had comprehensive data encryption policies in place, yet nearly half have responsibility to protect Private Health Information as mandated by HIPAA. The same report says the corporations that are implementing data protection are using slower HDDs with some form of software encryption, which is still susceptible to vulnerabilities and requires a higher overall TCO to deploy and manage.

“For today’s corporate environments, CIO angst over encryption of data on end-point devices and in the cloud hasn’t replaced worries about internal key management and interoperability among encryption products,” said Michael A. Davis, CTO of CounterTack and Informationweek contributor. “Combining a self-encrypting SSD with a compatible ecosystem of ISV solutions makes it possible to help IT leaders sustain high productivity, ensure legal compliance, and lower TCO.”

SanDisk’s broad ISV partner ecosystem delivers easier data protection management in today’s multiplatform environments, as well as cloud-based manageability of self-encrypting SSDs, making them a viable option for businesses with a wide range of IT requirements and budgets. This ecosystem also allows corporations to meet many of the regulatory standards for encryption of protected employee data such as those mandated by HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley, PCI-DSS, and many state and local privacy laws. Additionally, because the X300s supports TCG Opal 2.0 and Microsoft Encrypted Hard Drive industry security standards and are supported by a broad ISV ecosystem, corporations now can easily deploy Data Loss Prevention methods to protect corporate IP, meet compliance laws, and reduce overall TCO.

SanDisk’s new X300s SSD also addresses the need for high performance, increased productivity, and a better overall user experience demanded by today’s mobile workforce—making it a ‘win’ for employees, as well as IT. The drive provides hardware-level encryption for additional security without the typical detrimental impact on performance associated with software encryption. Additionally, the SanDisk X300s SSD offers lower latency and greater read/write speeds over traditional HDDs—delivering a noticeable improvement in system responsiveness—and is more reliable than self-encrypting HDDs or HDDs, which can help improve total cost of ownership (TCO) by reducing downtime due to hard drive failures.

Some thoughts from our Partner Ecosystem on SanDisk’s X300s SSD

Absolute Software—“We are pleased to be an inaugural member of SanDisk’s ecosystem of independent software vendors for security management. We have worked with SanDisk to ensure compatibility between Absolute Secure Drive and SanDisk's X300s self-encrypting drives,” said Tim Williams, Director of Product Management at Absolute Software. “Our ability to manage these solid-state drives will help our customers as they transition away from software-based encryption to hardware-based solutions."

Check Point Software Technologies—“Check Point is excited to support SanDisk’s newest offering of X300s self-encrypting drives, which will improve end-user productivity and protect sensitive corporate data in the age of the mobile workforce,” said Alon Kantor, vice president of business development at Check Point Software Technologies. “Check Point’s Full Disk Encryption has been optimized for the X300s, offering trusted and proven security for highly-scalable deployments leveraging our award-winning Software Blade Architecture™.”

McAfee—“We share SanDisk’s goal to help secure the data of businesses, whether large or small, and are happy to support the SanDisk X300s SSD self-encrypting drives,” said Candace Worley, senior vice president and general manager, endpoint security at McAfee. Part of Intel Security. “Easily integrated into our McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator environment, the X300s helps prevent exposure of sensitive data commonly found on today’s mobile and desktop PCs.” Microsoft—“Deploying data at rest protection to devices has always been a challenge for customers. The encryption process can take significant time,” said Dustin Ingalls, partner group program manager, operating systems security and identity group, Microsoft. “We’re excited to see SanDisk helping customers overcome this challenge by including Encrypted Hard Drive support in SED’s like their new X300s SSD. With this technology, Windows 8.1 customers using BitLocker will be able to achieve data encryption compliance within seconds rather than hours.” TCG Opal—“Widely adopted standards developed by Trusted Computing Group for self-encrypting drives, used in SSDs and other kinds of drives, offer enterprise IT staff and users the ultimate security and encryption solution – always-on, transparent and effective encryption that users cannot turn off, lose or defeat,” said Lisa Bobbit, co-chair, marketing work group, Trusted Computing Group. “And all self-encrypting drives based on TCG standards can be erased in milliseconds, making them safe for disposal or repurposing, helping prevent a common cause of data breaches."

Wave Systems—"The growing concern over data security, privacy and the business risk of a data breach has escalated the discussion of encryption to the executive level," said Wave CEO Bill Solms. "We’re pleased to have forged a close partnership with SanDisk, having fully validated Wave’s EMBASSY Security Center and our remote management tools, Wave Cloud 2014 and EMBASSY Remote Administration Server, with the X300s. The SanDisk-Wave solution provides superior performance and security features, while providing customers critical features that address compliance.”

WinMagic—“WinMagic is pleased to be able to work with SanDisk to help validate and certify its new X300s SEDs with our market-leading encryption management solution SecureDoc. The X300s is one of the first drives to receive the WinMagic Certified Secure certificate under the newly announced SecureDoc compatibility program,” said Garry McCracken, vice-president, technology partnerships at WinMagic Inc. “SEDs offer customers the best data encryption option available today and SanDisk’s foray into this market further validates this position. SEDs combined with strong management technology like SecureDoc deliver the best value proposition for customers reducing management costs while increasing overall security.”

For more information about the SanDisk X300s SSD and the SanDisk Ecosystem of ISV software providers, please visit: http://www.sandisk.com/x300s.