Strategic relationship intended to strengthen security of laptops, removable media, personal digital assistants and smartphones
Entrust, a world-leading provider of Identity and Access Management solutions, and Pointsec Mobile Technologies, the worldwide de facto standard for mobile device security, today announced a new strategic technology, sales and marketing relationship to address the growing need for protecting data on mobile devices. Bringing together their award-winning security capabilities, the two companies will develop and market data security products designed to protect information in laptop, desktop, PDA and server environments.
Under the agreement, Entrust has added three new products based on Pointsec’s award-winning technology to its Entrust Entelligence product portfolio. The new products provide organisations with the ability to automatically protect data at rest on laptops, desktops, and removable media and mobile devices such as PDAs without the need to rely on users to take additional actions that might impact their productivity. This allows organisations to more easily comply with government and industry regulations while securely enabling their mobile workforce by encrypting data both at rest as well as in transit.
The three new Entrust Entelligence products being announced are:
· Entrust Entelligence Disk Security is a laptop and desktop PC security solution that automatically and transparently encrypts a computer’s hard-disk to protect it from information theft or disclosure. In the CSI/FBI 2004 Computer Crime and Security Survey, 49 percent of organisations reported laptop theft occurrences in the previous year (not counting loss), and 10 percent reported theft of proprietary information.
· Entrust Entelligence Media Security enforces enterprise security policy for removable media devices such as USB drives and removable hard-disks, encrypting data stored on such media. In a recent report, Gartner warned that portable storage devices pose a serious security threat and recommend that suitable policies be adopted such as confirming the need for passwords and encryption of stored corporate data.
· Entrust Entelligence Mobile Security automatically and transparently protects the contents of mobile devices running Palm OS, Windows Mobile and Symbian operating systems, whether on personal digital assistants or smartphones. Increasingly, such devices can not only carry contact lists but also spreadsheets and corporate databases.
Together with the Entrust Messaging Solution capabilities for the RIM Blackberry platform, Entrust offers unmatched coverage across a broad range of today’s mobile platforms.
According to John Girard, vice president and research director at Gartner: “The typical workstation or mobile device contains a wealth of sensitive information. If a laptop, PDA or smartphone is lost or stolen, the enterprise and user must deal with the loss and liability of timely and strategic information in addition to the cost of the device itself.”
Combined with Entrust’s existing products that deliver strong user authentication, secure network access and secure messaging, the three new Entrust Entelligence products provide a comprehensive suite for mitigating the risk of corporate data loss, disclosure and data corruption. These capabilities are a strategic fit for Entrust by more tightly integrating key compliance features, such as centralised policy management and enforcement, into Entrust solution portfolios. This helps to provide customers with a holistic security approach that incorporates both automated compliance technology in addition to strong authentication and encryption capabilities.
“Together with Entrust, known for leadership in the security industry, Pointsec will be empowered to take our products to broader markets and drive the evolution of our technology. This is why we have great expectations for this partnership to have a significant effect on our company’s growth.”said Peter Larsson, CEO of Pointsec Mobile Technologies. “Our complementary technologies are a great fit, and both companies are committed to combining our security technologies in innovative ways for the benefit of our customers.”
“The addition of the market-leading capabilities of Pointsec’s products to the Entrust portfolio allows us to address a greater range of security issues for our customers,” said Eric Skinner, Vice President, Secure Data Solutions at Entrust. “We look forward to a continued close relationship with Pointsec, leveraging our combined strengths to bring effective new products to market in order to help organisations reduce the risk to their sensitive data.”