Intel and PGP have announced a partnership to sell encryption products on systems with Centrino Pro and vPro technologies. These products will be sold and marketed through Intel’s channel and customers.
PGP’s Encryption Platform and Whole Disk Encryption will be supported in both Windows Vista and XP. Intel will integrate PGP’s products into its Active Management Technology (AMT) framework, which enables IT administrators to remotely troubleshoot desktops and notebooks.
PGP security encryption is available now, but Phil Dunkelberger, president and CEO of PGP, thinks this will widen its appeal. “I liken it to what they did with built-in Wi-Fi,” he told internetnews.com. “By enabling Wi-Fi vendors to take advantage of the built-in wireless networking, look how much they expanded the market.”
Dunkelberger said PGP will be doing special development projects with Intel to adapt applications and systems utilities to utilize PGP technologies. The fruits of that effort should begin to appear as early as next month.
The PGP Encryption Platform is an enterprise framework for shared user and key management, policy, and provisioning automated across multiple, integrated encryption applications. It provides automated encryption services to integrated applications, encrypting data at the application or file level.
PGP Whole Disk Encryption provides complete, constant disc encryption in real time, protecting the disk drive in its entirety, not just application data at the individual file level. It can lock down the entire contents of a laptop, desktop, external drive, or USB flash drive, including boot sectors, system, and swap files.
As part of the AMT integration, a “heartbeat” or signal is sent from the computer with the PGP security to the central management software. When PGP services go down, the heartbeat goes down. “That’s when AMT can take action. It can quarantine the machine or platform, deny it network access, stop it from sending email, what have you,” said Sanjit Shah, director of business development at PGP.
Because AMT is only on vPro, it could not be offered on previous Centrino-based laptops. Now that vPro technology is a part of Centrino Pro, PGP was able to add support for the new Intel mobile platform, launched this week.