Dell Wednesday announced its first endpoint encryption product, along with the possibility of factory installation on certain Dell PCs.
Encryption adoption driven by PCI, fear of cyberattacks
The software, Dell Data Protection, is file-based encryption software co-developed with Credant Technologies, according to David Konetski, Dell Business Client, Office of the CTO. The enterprise edition, especially suitable for small- to midsized businesses, includes a management console and policy templates that allow for automated encryption of certain files, along with a reporting capability to generate reports for compliance purposes.
"Many of our customers have small IT departments but the company is still required to be compliant with regulations," says Konetski, pointing to the Payment Card Industry (PCI) data-security requirements and the healthcare data privacy and security law, Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), as examples.
The Dell Data Protection product includes a way to generate reports based on specific regulatory regimes, like HIPAA or PCI, Konetski says. The encryption software, OEMed from Credant, is already certified under the government FIPS security-evaluation program.
Dell anticipates being able to offer additional security-related products in the future that are expected to also make use of the management console introduced with Dell Data Protection, which starts at about $60 per seat, with volume discounts available.
Dells says factory installation of the technology will be available on its Latitude notebooks, OptiPlex desktops and Precision mobile and desktop workstations.
Read more about wide area network in Network World's Wide Area Network section.