November 06, 2007 01:06am AEDT

Hard drive encrypter all-clear

Jennifer Foreshew | November 06, 2007

An Australian hardware-based encryption product has passed a high-level evaluation by national Defence.

Peter James says moving sensitive dataaround the world is safe with SDV.

Silicon Data Vault, developed by Perth-based Secure Systems, has been rated by the national authority for signals intelligence and information security, the Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), as one of the few encryption products suitable for storing and protecting top-secret data on laptops.

"If the government wants to transport data somebody must have a laptop with them," Secure Systems chief executive Peter James said. "Now, you can move data around the world with the confidence that it's protected.

"The SDV is a hard drive that can be retrofitted to a laptop to provide absolute control over the hard drive, making it unusable until the user is authenticated.

All data written to the drive is encrypted by a hardware chip built into the drive.

DSD director Ian McKenzie said demand from government departments and agencies to securely carry classified information on portable electronic documents, along with changing technology threats, had prompted aninvestigation of products.

"The evaluation is an important step in not only the protection of classified electronic information, but also government's ability to transport this type of information securely," Mr McKenzie said. With minor enhancements, SDV could be used in systems to higher classification levels, the DSD said.

Mr James said the patented product was used by a range of Australian government departments and agencies, including defence, customs and foreign affairs.

"The customers are very happy with it and, where they have relationships with other allied countries, they are recommending it." Mr James said.

"We recently had some interest from Canada and the US."

"SDV, which costs $1450 per unit, is also packaged in a portable form as a USB attachable disk. The product can be used in a desktop" he said.