BitLocker Manager Helps Businesses Deploy and Manage BitLocker Encryption Globally
Wave Systems announced the availability of Wave BitLocker Manager for Windows 7, a management suite that helps organizations easily initialize, configure and administer deployment of BitLocker clients without the cost and complexity associated with custom creation of scripts and Active Directory schema extensions.
Many SMBs and enterprises are starting to evaluate and implement full disk encryption solutions. By providing full-volume encryption, BitLocker, Microsoft’s native encryption application, ensures that any file saved on a computer’s drive is encrypted automatically. (BitLocker is standard on Ultimate and Enterprise editions of Windows7)
Wave BitLocker Manager assists with recovery and role-based help desk functions can ease the burden on IT, while detailed activity reports and server logs can be essential for compliance — delivering a secure record of proof that data was protected in the event a PC is lost or stolen.
Interest in data protection has been growing as the incidents of data breach have escalated. Legislation in many jurisdictions now requires tough penalties, as well as public disclosure, when personally identifiable information is mishandled.
“As organizations begin their migration to Windows 7, many are considering BitLocker encryption to assist in addressing both regulatory compliance mandates and internal privacy requirements,” commented Eric Ouellet, Vice President, Secure Business Enablement Gartner. “Leveraging the local machine TPM feature is critical to ensuring strong security in these deployments. When combined with third party key managers that offer enhanced capabilities with increased ease of use, organizations are provided with a path to simplify deployment, administration and compliance.”
The adoption curve for Windows 7 is just beginning. Organizations can benefit from the strong cost and security advantages of turning on BitLocker with Wave’s central management application for configuring and implementing policy controls.
“We believe that encryption of all information on notebooks should be considered mandatory,” commented Steven Sprague, Wave’s President and CEO. “We continue to advocate that self-encrypting hard drives offer the best value. But buying SEDs for every PC may not be feasible in the short term, so a hybrid approach to encryption is needed. We believe that BitLocker is an excellent choice, and superior to after-market software-based encryption. It brings the added benefit of security from a layer of hardware protection, provided by turning on the TPM security chip standard in all business-class Windows 7 PCs.”