Iron Mountain Debuts Centralized Encryption Solution for Laptops

Published: February 1, 2006

by Alex Woodie

Did you hear the one about the Ameriprise employee whose stolen laptop put the identities of 230,000 Americans at risk? It was likely just a case of smash and grab by an unsophisticated thief, who probably didn't have the skills to get much out of the limited data. But because the data was not encrypted per the company's policy, the employee was fired, and Ameriprise was forced to mail out hundreds of thousands of those danged letters that begin with "Dear Customer, We regret to inform you…"

With new stories like this hitting the press on a seemingly weekly schedule, it's no wonder vendors like Iron Mountain are unveiling new security solutions on a weekly basis, too. Last week the Boston-based company unveiled a new PC encryption solution called PC DataDefense that seemed tailor-made for the Ameriprise case.

With PC DataProtector, Iron Mountain says it has delivered a way to automatically encrypt valuable data stored on laptops, without requiring any "special actions" by the users themselves. When a computer is reported lost or stolen, or the software detects behaviors that are inconsistent with authorized use, DataProtector automatically deletes sensitive data, and the PC is disabled, rendering the data useless to thieves, the company says. In the event the computer is recovered, the data can be restored via Iron Mountain's Connected DataProtector/PC.

A recent study by Enterprise Strategy Group's information security practice found that 68 percent of users said their confidential data is most vulnerable on a laptop PC, according to Jon Oltsik, a senior analyst and the founder of the ESG's information security practice. "This presents an ugly scenario where the most secure enterprises can be foiled by one unfortunate executive in the wrong place at the wrong time. Iron Mountain's DataDefense solution guards against this common 'low skill/high impact' type of crime and protects against data breaches, compliance violations, and litigation in the process."

PC DataProtector is available via subscription as a solution hosted by IronMountain, or through a software license. See www.ironmountain.com for more info.