Samsung brings SSD self-encryption

SAN JOSE, USA: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. has said its new solid-state drive (SSD) with built-in hardware encryption provides a higher level of protection against unauthorized access to sensitive information on a lost or stolen laptop.

The new Samsung SSD introduced recently is light and rugged, adding to its usefulness for today's traveling professionals and others using corporate PCs, a company release said.

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"Faster and more secure than its predecessor, our new corporate-focused SSD is the only one with self-encryption built on TCG's Opal standard that's available on the market today," said Jim Elliott, Vice President, Memory Marketing and Product Planning, Samsung Semiconductor, Inc.

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The Samsung SSD features advanced hardware-based self-encryption to protect confidential data from unauthorized access. This security capability is based on the industry's leading Trusted Computing Group's Opal standard and features stronger 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) keys. The hardware encryption is always on, and both the data encryption and user authentication are performed in the high security of the drive controller, rather than being stored in software. Software encryption performs encryption using the main CPU of the PC and stores protected data in the insecure memory of the system; in contrast, self-encrypting drives (SEDs) encrypt data at interface speed with no impact on performance within the protected hardware of the SSD.

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