Full-Disk Encryption Grows

MISSISSAUGA, Ontario and BOSTON -- WinMagicR Inc. (www.winmagic.com), the innovative leader in full-disk encryption, today announces that Aberdeen Group's Encryption & Key Management report, made available to the public in part through the underwriting of WinMagic, states

that the number of organizations protecting sensitive data with encryption is rapidly expanding. The report shows a strong trend towards full-disk encryption, such as WinMagic's SecureDoc - with nearly twice as many respondents indicating they will deploy full-disk encryption as opposed to file encryption for desktops/laptops during the next year.

The report also finds that Best-in-Class companies are investing in automated key management and key distribution capabilities to cope with, and

reap the benefits of, significantly broader use of encryption. Compared to all companies surveyed, the Best-in-Class supported 1.9X more keys with an estimated 34% lower total annual cost on a per-key basis. Aberdeen Group also notes that a main priority of organizations will be gaining more control over data that is flowing to end-user devices such as PDAs and USB thumb drives. The projected year-over-year growth (planned use versus current use) in this area exceeds 100%.

According to the study, the rapid increase in demand for encryption solutions among Best-in-Class organizations has led to an 81% increase in the total number of application types using encryption, a 71% increase in the total number of encryption keys under management, and a 50% increase in the number of locations using encryption compared to a year ago.

"The traditional network perimeter security model has been dissolved by more

open, flexible network access and distributed computing," said Derek E. Brink, Vice President and Research Director for IT Security, Aberdeen Harte-Hanks. "In its place, an information-centric approach is emerging that leverages encryption to secure data at rest, and it is combined with a key management infrastructure to protect and control access to the encryption keys that provide the foundation for this higher level of protection," Brink continued. "As networks become ever-more distributed, organizations indicate that they are looking for solutions that can secure the data on their end-user devices."

Aberdeen Group