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nCipher celebrates its 10th anniversary as encryption goes mainstream
By nCipherpr1* on Thu, 12/14/2006 - 1:15pm
After ten years, nCipher continues to meet the challenges of digital data
protection
December 14, 2006 - Cryptography increasingly plays a central role in the
fight to protect critical enterprise information, according to nCipher plc
(LSE:NCH), a global leader in protecting critical enterprise data, which is
celebrating its 10th anniversary this month.
Founded in late 1996, nCipher developed the world's first security module
specifically designed to protect private personal information as it was
transmitted over the internet. The familiar 'padlock' icon in the corner of
a web browser window was, for most people, their first exposure to digital
encryption and it has rapidly become a vital enabling technology in the
growth of e-commerce. Today encryption is being applied ever more widely to
protect sensitive data throughout enterprises, both at rest within
databases or storage systems, while being processed within software
applications, and in transit.
"Digital data now is no more sensitive than it was ten years ago, but there
is now even more of it and even more people want access to it anytime and
from any location, so business agility has become the name of the game."
says Alex van Someren, chief executive officer at nCipher. "The challenge
now for many companies is to open up their internal systems for greater
flexibility, while at the same time recognizing the extremely high level of
scrutiny and regulatory pressure around the privacy and integrity of
personal and corporate information. With traditional network boundaries
disappearing, this more 'data-centric' approach to security means that
critical information needs protecting wherever it is. Cryptography, the
science of encryption, can do this and nCipher's business is to help ensure
it is done efficiently and securely."
"While enterprises increasingly need to deploy a strong cryptographic
foundation for data security, the focus now is less on details, such as
algorithms and key lengths, and more on practices and policies. It is just
as important to manage the distribution and recovery of cryptographic keys,
and control the rights to access those keys, to secure the data they
protect," says Dr Nicko van Someren, chief technology officer at nCipher.
"Get it wrong, and management costs will explode. Worse still, lose the
keys and there is the potential for creating the equivalent of a giant
electronic document shredder since encrypted data can effectively never be
recovered without the correct key."
nCipher is building on its history of advanced security technology to
create solutions which enable organizations to define who can access
critical data, to protect data both in transit and at rest, and to comply
with the growing volume of privacy-driven legislation and regulations. In
technology terms this means a tight integration between cryptography,
identity management, strong authentication, workflow administration and
auditing functions.
"Ten years after the foundation of nCipher, the use of cryptography is
rapidly becoming mainstream. Microsoft's latest Vista operating system
contains important new security features, including better protection of
data with encryption, while PCs and laptops from most of the leading
computer companies now contain hardware chips dedicated to encryption and
protecting keys." says Alex van Someren. "Looking to the future, nCipher's
core cryptographic expertise and strong financial position ensure that it
is ideally positioned to help its customers around the world deploy
complete enterprise data protection solutions, while managing cost and
complexity, to demonstrate regulatory compliance."
nCipher solutions at a glance:
Data Encryption
nCipher's data protection suite combines encryption software, robust access
controls and cryptographic hardware to deliver critical data security
across the extended enterprise. This allows information to be secured at
the application, database, file or document level across multiple locations.
Enterprise Key Management
nCipher offers centralized cryptographic key management and automated key
delivery to distributed applications and geographically dispersed
locations. This drives lower operational costs and increased accountability
by unifying and automating this critical aspect of security management.
Identity Management
Last year nCipher acquired a major stake in Abridean Inc., a leading
provider of user management and provisioning systems, to enable
organizations to automate and manage all activities associated with adding,
maintaining and removing users, their digital identities, credentials and
entitlements. Their software solution delivers centralized management of
security policies and access privileges to critical applications, data and
resources.
Cryptographic Hardware
nCipher's range of Federally-validated cryptographic hardware platforms
allow organizations to go beyond software based security techniques to
secure encryption and signing keys, protect sensitive application code,
prove the authenticity of documents and accelerate SSL and other high
capacity cryptographic operations.
*Member for 1 day 13 hours
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R. A. Hettinga