Deal sees self-encrypted hard drives for notebooks


13 Mar 2007

Seagate, the world’s largest hard drive maker, has announced that its self-encrypted Momentus hard drive is to be used by a notebook manufacturer for the first time.

ASI Computer Technologies will be the first company to offer such bottom-up security in a market where the notebook is fast becoming a desktop replacement and increasingly stores sensitive data.

A recent study by the Ponemon Institute found that 35pc of all computer data violations involved lost notebooks or other digital devices. Having self-encrypted hard drives as standard issue on corporate laptops could help reduce this figure.

It is believed that information stored on lost or stolen laptops costs businesses millions in lost trade secrets or intellectual property.

The Momentus 5400 FDE.2 has full disk encryption so that the data is encrypted before it’s even written to the hard drive. Seagate claimed that if stolen even information retrieval experts would get nothing but gibberish.

By Marie Boran.