PKWARE Launches Enterprise Encryption And Key Management Solution

New Data Security Solution Takes Aim at 'The Insider Threat'

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Jan 19, 2016, 09:00 ET

PKWARE provides Smart Encryption to protect data any way businesses use, share and store it. The Milwaukee-based company created the .ZIP file standard and its compression and security solutions are used by 30,000 global companies.

MILWAUKEE, Jan. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- PKWARE, the leading provider of smart encryption everywhere, today introduced Smartcrypt, an enterprise encryption and key management solution. Aimed at Global 1,000 companies and government agencies, Smartcrypt ensures security threats are nullified by eliminating the value of stolen or leaked data from unauthorized users.

"Over 30 years of heritage in data encryption and compression, working on behalf of more than 30,000 customers and 200 government entities, went into the creation of Smartcrypt," said V. Miller Newton, President and CEO at PKWARE. "We've simplified the complex challenges of data encryption, including key management, and have created a solution uniquely tailored to the rising tide of both insider and external threats."

According to a recent study by PwC, 43% of cybersecurity breaches were caused by internal activities or an organization's own staff.ⁱ Examples of common insider threats include lost laptops and mobile devices, or careless protection of login and administration credentials. A 2015 report conducted by the Ponemon Institute shows that the total average cost of a data breach is now $3.8 million, up from $3.5 million a year ago.ⁱⁱ

The primary benefits of Smartcrypt include:

Protect data without disruption. Smartcrypt seamlessly integrates with existing end-user experiences. Encryption operations, policy changes, key generation, exchange and escrow happen behind the scenes to ensure ease and usability.
Data security intelligence reporting provides policy, control, and visibility. Smartcrypt ensures that unique Smartkeys are generated for each dataset. This enables decryption to occur only when information is viewed on an authorized user's device. With Smartkey technology, businesses gain across-the-board control of who can decrypt files and read data.
Seamless integration with current systems and environments: Smartcrypt integrates itself across all systems, platforms and languages – from mainframe to mobile – and seamlessly follows the data as it leaves the organization. Smartcrypt secures information across smartphones, cloud storage services, or other external storage systems and environments.

"Security and key management should be tied to the data itself," said Garrett Bekker, Senior Analyst, Information Security Practice, 451 Research. "Security breaches are now inevitable – increasing in both velocity and cost – and adding a defense-in-depth strategy at the data level will help mitigate the risk of a damaging data breach. With Smartcrypt, PKWARE is providing an encryption and key management solution that provides protection against all types of threats – including the insider threat – as well as visibility into how the information is being used by authorized users for added compliance benefits."

PKWARE's policy-based encryption keys improve upon traditional key escrow systems, making them simple to use. Smartcrypt requires no complex integrations or other dependencies, enabling the solution to be deployed in a few days.

PKWARE also provides a Smartcrypt SDK, which addresses the most widely used programming languages including C/C++, C# .NET, and Java. It avoids the complexity of creating crypto libraries or juggling key management systems. By providing application-layer encryption to secure sensitive information stored in files and databases, programmers can focus on creating innovative applications rather than spending time and resources on security.

PKWARE's Smartcrypt is currently generally available. For more information, visit www.pkware.com/Smartcrypt.

About PKWARE
For three decades, PKWARE has provided encryption and compression software to more than 30,000 enterprise customers, including 200 government entities. Inventor of the .ZIP file, PKWARE's Smart Encryption security solutions armor the data itself and eliminate vulnerabilities wherever data is used, shared, and stored.

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ⁱ "2015 Information Security Breaches Survey." PwC and HMRC. 12/22/15 ⁱⁱ "2015 Cost of Data Beach Study: Global Analysis."Ponemon Institute. 12/22/15.