Releases

posted on 14 May 2008 08:20

London, UK. — May 13, 2008 — Seagate Technology (NYSE:STX) today announced that the National Security Agency (NSA) has qualified the Momentus 5400 FDE.2 hard drive, the storage industry’s landmark self-encrypting laptop PC hard drive, for use in laptops and other computers deployed by U.S. government agencies and contractors for national security purposes.

With the NSA qualification, the Momentus 5400 FDE.2 hard drive meets one of the highest standards for securing sensitive information – the National Security Telecommunications and Information Systems Security Policy (NSTISSP) #11. NSTISSP #11 defines requirements for a wide variety of products that “satisfy a diversity of security requirements to include providing confidentiality for data, as well as authenticating the identities of individuals or organisations exchanging sensitive information.”^*

“The National Security Agency’s qualification of the Momentus 5400 FDE.2 hard drive for U.S. government buy lists bears undeniable witness to the tremendous strength of the Seagate Secure™ portfolio of self-encrypting disk drives in protecting sensitive information for government, private enterprises and consumers alike,” said Tom Major, vice president of Seagate’s Personal Storage Business Unit. “With the soaring popularity of mobile computing worldwide, organisations and consumers need a simple, affordable way to secure consumer records, intellectual property and other sensitive information stored on mobile devices.”

Lost or stolen mobile devices can cost companies millions of dollars in compromised intellectual property, lost business because of reputation damage, and remedies for violations of data privacy legislation, as well as expose consumers to the high risk of identity theft. According to a 2007 study^** of U.S. organisations by The Ponemon Institute, lost and stolen laptops and other mobile devices continue to be the most frequent cause of data breaches, with almost half (49 percent) of the incursions tied to these missing devices.

A 2008 study^*** by the institute found that encryption for laptops is the most common and that “the use of encryption is driven now more than ever by the need to mitigate the consequences of a potential data breach: 71 percent rated this as the top reason for deploying encryption, up from 66 percent in 2007.” Ponemon researchers concluded that “the widespread use of encryption – from laptops to file servers – has already prompted many organisations to begin planning strategically.”

Seagate Secure™ Technology – Locking Down Mobile, Desktop and Data Centre Information

The Momentus 5400 FDE.2 hard drive is powered by Seagate Secure technology, a groundbreaking security platform that couples strong, fully automated hardware-based full-disk encryption with leading security-based software applications to deliver centralised encryption key management, multi-factor user authentication and other capabilities that help lock down personal computer and data centre storage.

Seagate Secure technology uses AES to encrypt all hard drive information transparently and automatically at full interface speed to prevent performance drags common among traditional software encryption products, giving organisations an easy, cost-effective way to comply with the growing number of data privacy laws calling for the protection of consumer information using government-grade encryption. The data security platform also makes it easy to repurpose and retire computers and hard drives without compromising sensitive information; all data stored on the drive is rendered unreadable by simply deleting the encryption key.

The Seagate Secure portfolio of products includes Momentus 5400 FDE.2 hard drives; MaxtorÒ BlackArmor™ hard drives, delivering the strongest commercially available security for external storage; Barracuda FDE hard drives, internal 3.5-inch drives for desktop PCs; and Cheetah 15K.6 FDE, the world’s first self-encrypting hard drives for mission-critical servers and storage arrays. Learn more about Seagate Secure technology by visiting www.seagate.com/security.

Last year, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the U.S. federal agency focused on promoting product innovation by establishing technical standards for government and business, certified the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) encryption algorithm that powers the Momentus 5400 FDE.2 hard drive. The 2.5-inch 5400-rpm Seagate drive, designed to protect against unauthorised access to information stored on laptop PCs, even if they are lost or stolen, is the only encrypting device from a major hard drive maker to win both NIST certification and the NSA qualification.

About Seagate

Seagate is the worldwide leader in the design, manufacture and marketing of hard disc drives and storage solutions, providing products for a wide-range of applications, including Enterprise, Desktop, Mobile Computing, Consumer Electronics and Branded Solutions. Seagate's business model leverages technology leadership and world-class manufacturing to deliver industry-leading innovation and quality to its global customers, with the goal of being the time-to-market leader in all markets in which it participates. The company is committed to providing award-winning products, customer support and reliability to meet the world's growing demand for information storage. Seagate can be found around the globe and at http://www.seagate.com.


<sup>*More information on NSTISSP #11 is available at http://www.niap-ccevs.org/cc-scheme/faqs/nstissp-faqs.cfm#Question_I_5.

**2007 Annual Study: U.S. Cost of a Data Breach; The Ponemon Institute

***2008 Annual Study: U.S. Enterprise Encryption Trends; The Ponemon Institute</sup>

^{[Formatted by Paul Warren.]}