PGP, RSA announce encryption initiatives

Two encryption vendors are expected to disclose new undertakings this week, as PGP announces a product called NetShare, and RSA Security kicks off a standards effort as well as a partnership with Protegrity.

NetShare is a file-encryption product that will work by limiting access to content except by authorized users equipped with a designated public key. Expected to ship this fall, NetShare is intended to ensure that content remains encrypted when saved to a NetShare-protected folder, stored on a server or archived. NetShare competes against products from Dacru, NeoScale and Vormetrics.

"Each time, the file is signed by the last person who changed it," says Andrew Krcik, vice president of marketing at PGP.

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Two encryption vendors are expected to disclose new undertakings this week, as PGP announces a product called NetShare, and RSA Security kicks off a standards effort as well as a partnership with Protegrity.

NetShare is a file-encryption product that will work by limiting access to content except by authorized users equipped with a designated public key. Expected to ship this fall, NetShare is intended to ensure that content remains encrypted when saved to a NetShare-protected folder, stored on a server or archived. NetShare competes against products from Dacru, NeoScale and Vormetrics.

"Each time, the file is signed by the last person who changed it," says Andrew Krcik, vice president of marketing at PGP.

The product, which includes desktop software and the PGP Encryption Platform management console, can be synchronized with Lightweight Directory Access Protocol-based directories, including Microsoft's Active Directory, to administer access rights to encrypted files. File encryption and decryption is carried out transparently to users. Files and folders have an associated access-control list, so unauthorized users who gain access view only scrambled ciphertext.

While NetShare keeps data encrypted at rest, it can't prevent authorized users from copying or otherwise reproducing data once it has been decrypted. NetShare is priced at $149 per desktop and is expected to enter beta by the end of this month.

RSA this week is expected to embark on its data-protection strategy to make its encryption interfaces openly available and eventually standardized.

"We're going to be going to the IETF with standardized interfaces for certain key management functions, such as key retrieval and provisioning," says Chris Parkerman, senior product marketing manager.

As part of this strategy, RSA intends to expand use of its Key Manager product for centralizing management of private keys used in enterprise applications so third-party products can easily use it.

The first industry partner to work with RSA in this fashion is Protegrity, a security firm whose products include Defiance DPS.

According to Gordon Rapkin, Protegrity's president and CEO, the firm intends to develop a database-security product integrated with Key Manager that should be available by year-end.

Read more about security in Network World's Security section.