News

posted on 06 May 2008 21:00

Data loss from stolen notebooks with Fujitsu's encrypting drive can be banished for ever; you can kill the drive remotely.

Fujitsu has a full disk encryption (FDE) 2.5-inch SATA drive, that spins at 7,200rpm. Fujitsu is working with Phoenix Technologies, which makes a notebook's BIOS system, on FailSafe technology. A FailSafe software agent is installed on the drive. A notebook owner can track the location of the notebook if it is stolen and destroy any ability to access data on the drive.

The owner can, for example, remotely cause data on the drive to be encrypted if it has not already been.

Joel Hagberg, marketing and business development VP for Fujitsu Computer Products of America, said: "Our encryption capabilities ensure data on the disk drive is inaccessible to unauthorized users if a laptop is lost or stolen. By enabling users to remotely disable, enable or securely erase the drive in a laptop, the Phoenix Failsafe solution provides an added level of protection to further prevent any confidential information from being compromised."

The Phoenix view was given by Surendra Arora, also a business development VP, who said: "We are committed to providing the best theft deterrence service and data protection solutions in the PC industry. Phoenix's FailSafe theft-deterrence service will allow the PC owner to track, remotely disable and securely erase the Fujitsu disk drive."

" In the event of laptop theft, if the FailSafe agent pre-installed on the Fujitsu FDE HDD product is removed by the computer/data thief, the authorized owner will be able to remotely re-install the FailSafe agent in the compromised system and take further steps to ensure protection as well as recovery of the data on the laptop."

Phoenix clearly wants to work with other encrypting drive vendors.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}