Encryption Blog

The Encryption Blog is where you will find updates on Symantec’s encryption products, commentary on important trends in data protection, and important product-related security alerts and notifications.

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  Updated: Tim_Matthews 05 Nov 2012

  Stopping the WikiLeaks Scenario with Encryption, Device Control and Endpoint DLP

  A U.S. Army intelligence specialist? Walking out with confidential documents on a CD? Impossible. When I first heard about the exposure of hundreds of diplomatic memos, I was anticipating a sophisticated cloak and dagger tale. But Pfc. Manning walked out the door with a bogus Lady Gaga CD-RW filled with government secrets. While my initial reaction was that this never should have happened, I can see where the dual priorities of a worker-friendly environment and the mission-critical imperative to share information quickly could have led to this situation. The good news is that there is a straightforward regimen to help stop these kinds of risks. 1) Install Device Control Device control, as its name suggests, controls what devices can be used on a given computer. So if you want to disallow CD burning by a government security analyst with access to secret documents, you can do so...
• 0

  Updated: Kelvin_Kwan 28 Jan 2013

  Symantec Encryption: What's New?

  In the past, it was fairly easy to keep corporate data protected by keeping it within an established perimeter—protected by established access controls and passwords.  That model has been blown apart as iPhone, iPad and other smartphones and tablets have taken over. Add to that the accessibility and usability of file sharing services like Dropbox and you can see why this transformation has information security managers concerned. These are not trends that organizations can deal with by saying “no.”  They urgently need solutions to help secure confidential data and limit access. Today, we’re pleased to announce that Symantec’s new encryption solutions, powered by PGP Technology, are now shipping. With this Symantec Encryption release, Symantec leverages our encryption portfolio to ensure cloud data remains safe while keeping it accessible, and to protect confidential email for mobile. Here’s a look at what’s new....
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  Updated: Kelvin_Kwan 05 Nov 2012

  Attention Mac OS X Users: Using PGP WDE or SEE FDE and the Imminent Release of OS X 10.8 - Mountain Lion

  The newest version of OS X, 10.8 - Mountain Lion is scheduled to be released sometime in July of 2012 by Apple. Based on past experiences, we do NOT recommend users currently encrypted with PGP Whole Disk Encryption or SEE Full Disk Encryption for Macs upgrade to OS X 10.8 when made available by Apple. Symantec is actively testing PGP WDE and SEE FDE against the 10.8 developer builds from Apple. We will continue testing against all developer builds from Apple and also against the official release from Apple. As a reminder, you should not upgrade to 10.8 if you wish to continue to use WDE.  If you must upgraded to 10.8, then please decrypt your disk prior to installing 10.8.  Once on 10.8, please do not re-encrypt at this point in time.   Please check back to this blog for updates as they become available...
• 3

  Updated: Tim_Matthews 05 Nov 2012

  CISOs are in a Mobile Mindset, but Plenty of Work Remains

    With the end of 2011 upon us, one thing is sure: the mobile revolution is in full swing. Smartphones and tablets are everywhere. In fact, according to the analyst firm Gartner, sales of smartphones will exceed 461 million this year – surpassing PC shipments in the process – and rise to 645 million in 2012. Combined sales of smartphones and tablets will be 44 percent greater than the PC market by the end of the year. Beyond 2011, Gartner says the rise in tablet use will jump to 900 million by 2016. These devices are not just becoming mainstream, they are penetrating nearly every aspect of our lives. More importantly, for many the line between personal and business devices has been blurred, or erased altogether. More often than not, a single device is used for both personal and business activities, with Gartner also predicting that 80 percent of professionals will use at least two personal devices to access corporate systems and data by 2014....
• 4

  Updated: Kelvin_Kwan 05 Nov 2012

  Hardware Based Full Disk Encryption Is Almost Here…Now what?

    As many of you know, the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) was an initiative started by some well-known technology companies to help standardize and implement Trusted Computing.  One of the first “products” to come from this was the Trusted Platform Module (TPM).  There are various vendors that take advantage of the TPM chip for security related functions.  (Full disclosure:  Symantec is a member of the Trusted Computing Group.) The next significant “product” to come from TCG is the Opal standards for Self Encrypting Drives (SED).  The Opal standard is an industry standard for any hard disk drive (HDD) manufacture to sell SEDs that would comply with these standards.  Now what this means, is that these HDDs will have encryption already built into the hardware. “Great!  We won’t need to evaluate any of the software encryption vendors out there.  We can simply just buy SEDs from the...
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  Updated: Kelvin_Kwan 05 Nov 2012

  The Chicken or the Egg -- Why You Should Decrypt Before Upgrading to OS X Lion

    Now before I begin “The Chicken or the Egg” portion of the blog, I want to address an issue that many people are asking or wondering.  “Why must I first decrypt before upgrading to Lion?”  Well there are many reasons.  However, one of the biggest reasons is that in Lion, Apple has added Recovery Partition Support.  This Recovery Partition allows you to perform repairs and recovery to your Mac without having to find the DVD that came with your Mac.  This is important, because whenever your system is encrypted, it is NOT advisable to create, resize, or move partitions.  This is regardless if you’re running OS X, Windows, or Linux.  Bad things (e.g.  Data integrity issues) tend to happen when encrypted and you do partition modifications.  So, Symantec...
• 0

  Updated: Doug McLean 05 Nov 2012

  "The Report of My Death Is An Exaggeration"

  Doug McLean - Blogmeister Since Mark Twain uttered the title of this blog in 1897, hundreds if not thousands of technologies have been declared "dead."  Some technology obituaries, vacuum tube computers spring to  mind, were completely accurate. However,  I've been in the computer industry long enough to know that successful computing technologies rarely ever "die," they just get repurposed to work in new environments or to solve new problems. The best examples I can think of are SGML (Simple Graphic Markup Language) and ODA (Office Document Architecture). Both of these technologies were hot in the early '80s when the industry was looking for standardizing the way computers told printers how to render a page (and coincidentally creating massive markets for document and content management).  It turns out that both of these...
• 0

  Updated: Tim_Matthews 05 Nov 2012

  Encrypt Your Data, Protect Your Brand

  Tim Matthews - Senior Director Product Marketing Encryption and brand management make for an unlikely pairing. While both skilled disciplines, it's hard to imagine regular meetings between the math-mad elliptic curve tinkerer and Armani-clad glad hander archetypes. But the linkage between the two has only grown stronger the more of our lives we live online. For those not familiar with how valuable a brand can be, there’s no better place to start than the Best Global Brands report by...
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  Updated: Robin Witty 05 Nov 2012

  The Critical Need For Encrypted Email

  Robin Witty-Senior Product Marketing Manager Are your company's emails really secure? Do you know for sure when most email sent over the Internet is in clear text and can be read by anyone with simple tools and know-how. Similar to the old party line telephone systems where neighbors could listen in on your phone calls, unauthorized parties can obtain confidential information from unencrypted corporate emails including valuable intellectual property or third party data that may require protection regulated by law. If you think email breaches can’t happen to your company, consider a couple of high profile email breaches. Sarah Palin’s personal emails were posted to the web and her password was changed by a hacker. A...
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  Updated: Shilpi Dey 05 Nov 2012

  When a Data Breach Hits Close to Home

  Shilpi Dey - Product Marketing Manager It arrived in a non-descript envelope, similar to the ones promising exciting credit card offers. I would have tossed it in the recycling bin without opening, except that it was from one of the banks (let’s call it bank “B”) where I had an account, and something made me pause and break open the seal. The letter inside explained that some CDs and tapes containing some of my personal information were lost while being transported to an off-site storage facility. The letter reassured me that security is Bank B’s top priority; however, their archive services vendor had notified them that they could not account for one of several boxes of tapes and CDs being transported to their off-site storage facility. The missing media contained some personal information such as name, address, Social Security number and/or shareowner account information. I was especially relieved that though Bank B had not yet...