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AET in the Press
Staatsministerium Baden-Württemberg Selects WinMagic’s SecureDoc™ Full-Disk Encryption to Protect All Data on Laptops
SecureDoc’s Unsurpassed Flexibility made it Simple for Staatsministerium B-W to Integrate Full-Disk Encryption with Existing Single Sign-On Biometric Authentication
WinMagic® Inc., the innovative leader in full-disk encryption, today announced that its SecureDoc full-disk encryption software has been selected by Staatsministerium Baden-Württemberg (B-W), the government body of the Premier in the province of Baden-Württemberg (Germany) to protect all data on its laptops. SecureDoc was selected based on the robustness and flexibility of its highly-secure data encryption, including its unique ability to seamlessly integrate with Staatsministerium B-W’s existing single sign-on biometric authentication. Taking into account corporate governance regarding security, Staatsministerium B-W recognized that the pre-boot authentication component would be just as crucial as the actual data encryption component.
Having had previous experience with biometrics as a means of authentication, Staatsministerium B-W understood that secure user authentication had to take place at pre-boot time, instead of at Windows logon. Therefore, in order to adhere to its strict security policy, the full-disk encryption solution selected had to be able to seamlessly integrate with multi-factor user authentication via password, smart card, and biometrics at pre-boot. Only one solution met this critical requirement: SecureDoc.
Mr. Manfred Maier, Managing Director of StarTech Competence Center GmbH: “WinMagic was the only disk encryption vendor that was able to meet all the requirements. StarTech had the necessary expertise in order to integrate the required biometrics component with SecureDoc. Our experience and our competent service enables us to turn complex customer requirements into customizable and easy-to-use solutions”.
WinMagic’s unparalleled experience integrating full-disk encryption with smart cards, USB crypto tokens, PKI certificates, and biometric devices at pre-boot, enabled it to develop a solution that met all Staatsministerium B-W’s data security requirements in a matter of days. The solution, which comprised of SecureDoc full-disk encryption, IBM’s JCOP41 smart card, Precise Biometrics’ 250MC fingerprint reader, and A.E.T. Europe’s SafeSign Precise middleware was successfully demonstrated by StarTech, WinMagic’s Stuttgart-based certified SecureDoc reseller for the region of Baden-Württemberg.
The need for simple system administration was met by SecureDoc’s intuitive management GUI. Administrators were further assisted during set up by the fact that SecureDoc does not require its own partition on the hard drive, which also improved system efficiency by saving as much as 1GB of hard drive space. And, as SecureDoc installs transparently in the background without interrupting work in progress it also eliminated the user resistance administrators usually encounter when installing an additional layer of security.
“WinMagic met all Staatsministerium B-W’s strict encryption requirements, and now all data on all laptops is protected by SecureDoc,” explained Mr. Christoph Schönnenbeck, IT Manager, Staatsministerium Baden-Württemberg. “The nature of the confidential data is very diverse and relates to all the tasks and assignments for which Staatsministerium Baden-Württemberg is responsible.”
SecureDoc’s unique full-disk encryption has provided Staatsministerium B-W with unparalleled data protection that is simple to install, integrate, and manage. This functionality includes:
- The fastest to encrypt hard drive
- Ensures maintained and sustained integrity during the hard-drive encryption process, regardless if interrupted by power failure, or if Windows OS conducts pre-fetch (defrag), etc.
- Supports enterprise features such as remote deployment, remote challenge response one-time password recovery, and remote control
- Provides data recovery in case of virus infection (makes restoring an encrypted disk as easy as an restoring unencrypted disk)
- Encrypts every portion of the hard drive – not leaving any residual bytes unencrypted should the hard drive be partitioned
- Ensures encryption of the entire hard drive regardless of bad sectors or whether the hard drive needs to be defragmented
- Ensures that utility functions like Ghost, and others, work properly
Believing that, “whatever you can do with an unencrypted disk, you should be able to do with an encrypted disk by SecureDoc,” WinMagic provides disk-imaging capabilities and full support for Windows built-in defragmentation software and hibernation mode. Users can even resize partitions on encrypted disks, or run repair utilities and perform data recovery on disks in case of virus infection.
WinMagic’s SecureDoc Enterprise Server edition also makes it simple to deploy and manage encryption for hundreds of thousands of users. Remote features permit adding, removing, or augmenting users and profiles as well as allowing password recovery and integration with Active Directory and other LDAP servers such as PKI, and Novell.
“An organization cannot ensure data security unless the entire drive is encrypted, and WinMagic is proud that a security-conscious organization like Staatsministerium B-W has selected SecureDoc to protect all data on easily lost or stolen laptops,” said Thi Nguyen-Huu, CEO & President, WinMagic Inc. “Unlike other encryption solutions, SecureDoc’s flexibility makes it easy to combine multi-factor user authentication with transparent full-disk encryption at pre-boot to ensure all data on desktops, laptops, and handheld devices is protected.”
You can find the full press release here.
