Seagate puts a padlock on drive data

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 31 October 2006 16:04

Your IT - Home IT

US-based hard drive manufacturer, Seagate Technology, has taken long overdue steps to protect the data on the hard disks of computer owners with new hardware encryption technology.

The Seagate technology called DriveTrust encrypts all data written to the disk, making it accessible only to users who have the correct password when the computer is hard booted.

The 128-bit encryption technology has been welcomed by notebook users, in the light of a number of recent high profile thefts of notebooks containing sensitive data in the US Government.

One of the benefits being touted by Seagate is that encryption takes place at the disc automatically and doesn't consume system resources.

However, a weakness that has been highlighted is that a computer needs to be completely shut down and rebooted for the encryption to limit access to users. Many users leave their computers running for days and notebook owners often leave their notebooks in hibernation mode. The Seagate DriveTrust system will not work in such cases.