It’s a story that’s been told too many times to count. Secure information, circulating in government or commercial offices, gets out into the wider world because someone steals or loses a laptop. The security breach often makes headlines and can cause endless headaches if the device held sensitive information.
Good encryption is the obvious answer, and it’s one that WinMagic’s SecureDoc Version 5 does a remarkable job of providing. Using 256-bit encryption technology and preboot password authentication, SecureDoc V5 provides desktop-based security that is convenient and simple to use.
WinMagic’s encryption process applies to data sector by sector instead of simply working on an entire hard drive in one sweep. That seems to make cracking the data, in the event of a laptop loss, an even harder task than it would normally be.
WinMagic SecureDoc v5
Pros: A quick and easy way to make sure lost laptops don’t become security holes.
Cons: A little slower boot up; don’t forget your password or else.
Performance: A
Ease of Use: A
Features: B
Value: B
Price: $73.20 per 1,000 licenses ($54.90 per 1,000 licenses for government purchasers)
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The system is designed for enterprise use, across an entire federal agency or even a state government, and the Office of Management and Budget has certified it for purchase by government agencies. SecureDoc V5 also complies with a host of other agencies' security requirements for full-disk encryption concerning data at rest for most portable devices. The company clearly has done its homework in getting qualified to sell in the federal and state government markets.
In testing SecureDoc, we faced a problem: How does one test an encryption system? After all, we had the password to bypass the security features. And for all we knew, the system could be telling us what we wanted to hear. So we invited two members of a local university’s computer sciences department — one specializing in software and another in hardware — to attempt to crack into a personal laptop on which we had installed the silver edition of SecureDoc V5.
Working individually or together, they didn't manage to crack it, even after pulling the resources of the entire computer department. At no point did either of them even get past the initial log-in screen. If we ever lose a laptop protected by SecureDoc, we’ll sleep pretty easily.
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