Intel adds encryption to vPro - 2008

Is in the hardware, the software...no wait both..."system on chip"...another buzzword from the processing business, but a good one...V-Pro machines are every administrator's dream come true...as the machine will also take itself off the network if it has viral activity...and remember the hospital that employed V-Pro...it kept the hospital alive and kicking...BD

The addition of the Danbury tools represents only the latest in a string of security and management technologies embedded directly into the vPro lineup by Intel, including the company's Active Management Technology (AMT), which is aimed at making it easier for administrators to do remote updates on corporate machines, such as for installing anti-virus (AV) updates or operating system (OS) security patches.Rather than pitching the Danbury tools as an alternative to commercial encryption applications, the features will serve to augment software products made by companies including Credant, PGP, Pointsec, Safeboot and Utimaco, according to the Intel product engineering leader.

Many companies that have already installed encryption software on their computers are still struggling with key management, and, even worse, most fail to realize that the applications do not protect hard drives unless the machines are fully powered-up -- creating an attractive vector for attackers and giving those organizations a false sense of security -- said Steve Grobman, director of business client architecture at Intel. Even those computers carrying today's full-disk encryption tools remain vulnerable to attack when they are in hibernation and stand-by mode, he said.

And whereas administrators of encrypted machines are often forced to decrypt entire disk drives to perform tasks including operating system updates today, the new vPro features will eliminate complex software processes that make for such arduous work, they promised.

By taking certain sensitive operations and putting them directly into the hardware, such as by moving the keys into the chipset, we are making these encryption systems easier and more practical to get up-and-running," Grobman said. "This isn't an effort to compete with encryption software makers but rather to help customers see better implementations of their tools; we believe that these new features should actually have a positive effect on the entire encryption space."

Watch this IT manager control the clients from the server....hard hat area here.....