Continental Selects PGP

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- PGP Corporation, a global leader in enterprise data protection, today announced that the Continental Corporation, a leading automotive industry supplier based in Germany, has selected the PGP® Encryption Platform to secure proprietary and confidential information. The company has started rolling out PGP® Whole Disk Encryption to protect the data of 6,000 employees using corporate laptops along with PGP Universal™ Server for centralized management of its encryption applications.

Founded in 1871, the Continental Corporation specializes in tire and brake technology, vehicle dynamics control, electronics, and sensor systems, with the goal of making individual mobility safer and more comfortable. The decision to commit to the PGP Encryption Platform is the latest phase of corporate efforts to strengthen and expand Continental’s data security guidelines and measures. Given the company’s large mobile workforce carrying laptops with potentially sensitive data, Continental’s security team decided to use PGP Whole Disk Encryption to encrypt all 6,000 laptops. With the first PGP® application they deploy, organizations begin to realize the benefits of the PGP Encryption Platform. Additional PGP® solutions leverage this common infrastructure, providing lower operational costs and faster implementation compared to point solutions.

Alternative Strategies Evaluated

After considering various laptop encryption solutions, Continental selected PGP Whole Disk Encryption because of its ease of use and transparency. “If you want to protect data on a laptop, you can either encrypt individual files, parts of the hard disk using a ‘container’ approach, or the entire hard disk,” said Thomas Ullrich, chief security officer at Continental and the head of the company’s Competence Center Security Internet/Intranet.

“An encryption solution that handles individual files or containers isn’t suitable for securing a laptop hard disk because it doesn’t protect temporary and swap files. Plus, such solutions require users to store sensitive files in protected areas,” Ullrich continued. “We wanted to make encryption as simple and transparent as possible for the user, and PGP Whole Disk Encryption does just that. Best of all, we didn’t have to touch every laptop—it’s centrally deployed and managed.” PGP Universal Server, the foundation of the PGP Encryption Platform, provides unified, Web-based administration for all PGP Encryption Platform–enabled applications, users, policies, provisioning, logging, and reporting through a single management console.

Continental is very positive about the value of the PGP Encryption Platform. “A security breach could have a tremendously negative effect on our relationships with our customers and brand, so we view our investment in PGP® products as money extremely well spent,” adds Ullrich.

PGP Corp.