Trust Digital has announced that its PDASecure software is now
available for the IBM's Microdrive.
The new encryption software will allow users of the Microdrive hard
drives to use the same drive in different mobile devices without
having to reconfigure its security settings. The drive will offer
up to 1Gbyte of storage for mobile devices, the company said.
PDASecure is a software product that can distinguish between
differing encryption formats in mobile devices, and allow for that
data to be transferred from device to device without losing the
encryption protection or requiring the user to re-encrypt the data
after transferring it, said Kevin Shahbazi, vice-president of
marketing for Trust Digital.
"Users don't want to go through complicated security procedures, so
PDASecure allows security policies to be managed from a central
location," said Shahbazi.
The software can be used on any type of mobile device, including
laptops, PDAs, digital camera, and others, he added.
The software targetes large enterprise customers who use PDAs and
must protect the data contained in those devices, such as
government agencies and hospitals.
For example, nurses at a hospital could have patient records
uploaded to their Microdrive overnight, and then transferred via
the Microdrive from a central PC to their PDA when they arrive in
the morning, providing them with a detailed list of patient
information for their daily rounds.
US federal regulations require that personal information stored by
health-care providers be secured.
PDASecure can encrypt some or all of a user's files by converting
the files into ciphertext, which is unreadable unless unlocked
through a username and password, the company said. The encryption
process was derived from a military-grade security algorithm
developed by the company, Shahbazi said.
The software works on devices running Palmsource's Palm OS, and
Microsoft's Pocket PC and Windows CE operating systems, said
Shahbazi. A version for Research in Motion's Blackberry devices
will be released by the end of the month, he added.
PDASecure is available worldwide. Large enterprises will pay $79
(£55) for a single licence and $999 (£695) for the server-side
software package. Single users can buy the software to encrypt
their personal Microdrives for $29.99 (£21), the company said.