Thales Unveils Encryption Key Management Appliance for Storage

PRESS RELEASE

Cambridge, UK and Stoneham, MA " 14 April 2009 - Thales, leader in information systems and communications security, announces Thales's Encryption Manager for Storage (TEMS), the industry's first standards-based encryption key management appliance for storage managers.

TEMS supports IEEE P1619.3 and is designed to support OASIS KMIP, along with certain proprietary key management interfaces from leading storage vendors. This eliminates the need for storage professionals to deploy multiple key management systems and gives storage vendors the option to partner with an independent key management provider rather than develop and maintain their own key management systems.

TEMS is available as a ready-to-use appliance that consolidates and automates the management of encryption keys for storage systems in a transparent manner, delivering unified, fine-grained and auditable encryption key security controls. This enables organizations to adopt storage encryption with the confidence that their encryption keys are under control and secured in a cost-effective and future proof management system.

"As data breaches continue to embarrass companies and incur real costs, security initiatives have naturally focused on the storage infrastructure. The use of encryption within the switching fabric, back-up tapes, drives, arrays, and host adapters is rapidly becoming essential for safeguarding sensitive information, but many organizations are concerned about reliability and data recoverability issues," says Jon Oltsik, senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy Group.

"Thales is leading the way with a standards-based encryption key management appliance, making interoperable key management a reality for enterprises, which in turn unifies security practices and reduces the operational burden. This is a significant step for the industry and as a vendor-neutral management solution the Encryption Manager for Storage appliance creates new partnership opportunities for storage vendors," Oltisik adds.

"Responding to demands to secure data, customers are looking for storage systems with low-cost and easy-to-use encryption," says Franck Greverie, Vice President and Managing Director for the information systems security activities of Thales. "Market-leading storage vendors have identified this need and moved quickly to embedded encryption capabilities within their products. The Encryption Manager for Storage is the perfect complement to these systems, providing a single key management infrastructure for the storage environment to ensure that encryption keys are always available " when and where they are needed."

TEMS is the first standards-based key manager available with draft IEEE P1619.3 key management standard support and will support the final specification, due out early 2010. Subsequent releases will also support the recently announced OASIS KMIP key management standard, originally co-authored by Thales with other leading vendors.

Through collaboration with partners TEMS will support legacy or proprietary key management interfaces to provide storage professionals with the flexibility and freedom to utilize encryption at various points within their storage environments and to take advantage of pre-certified integration with their preferred storage systems. TEMS benefits from a secure and highly scalable architecture designed to meet FIPS 140-2 and builds on Thales's core cryptographic expertise and reputation for deploying strong cryptography in support of a wide variety of applications.

TEMS will be available in July 2009. More information on TEMS and Thales's industry-leading security solutions will be available during the RSA Conference (booth #2023), 20-24 April 2009 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

Notes to editors Thales is one of the world leaders in the provision of information and communication systems security solutions for government, defence, critical infrastructure operators, enterprises and the finance industry. Thales's unique position in the market is due to its end-to-end security offering spanning the entire value chain in the security domain. The comprehensive offering includes architecture design, security and encryption product development, evaluation and certification preparation and through-life management services.

Thales has 40 years of unrivalled track record in protecting information from 'sensitive but unclassified' up to 'top secret' and a comprehensive portfolio of security products and services, which includes network security products, application security products and secured telephony products.

About Thales Thales is a leading international electronics and systems group, addressing Aerospace and Space, Defence and Security markets worldwide. The Group's civil and military businesses develop in parallel and share a common base of technologies to serve a single objective: the security of people, property and nations. Thales's leading-edge technology is supported by 22,500 R&D engineers who offer a capability unmatched in Europe to develop and deploy field-proven mission-critical information systems. The Group builds its growth on its unique multidomestic strategy based on trusted partnerships with national customers and market players, while leveraging its global expertise to support local technology and industrial development. Thales employs 68,000 people in 50 countries with 2008 revenues of 12.7 billion (equivalent of US$18.6 billion).