DATEV Selects WinMagic's SecureDoc Full-Disk Encryption to Protect Data on Laptops

April 24, 2007; 12:22 AM

Nuremberg, Germany and Mississauga, Ontario – WinMagic^® Inc. (www.winmagic.com), the innovative leader in full-disk encryption, today announced that DATEV eG, a software company and IT service provider for tax consultants, auditors, lawyers and their clients, is installing SecureDoc full-disk encryption software to protect all data on company laptops.  Nuremberg-based DATEV will also purchase additional SecureDoc licenses to service its 40,000 member organizations (tax offices, accountant firms, consultants, lawyers, etc.).  DATEV selected SecureDoc for its robustness and flexibility, including its unique ability to seamlessly integrate with DATEV mIDentity authentication tokens with integrated smart cards at pre-boot.

With more than 70 percent of all tax offices in Germany affiliated with DATEV and about two thirds of medium-sized German companies’ financial accounts being looked after by tax consultants using DATEV software, its initial purchase of 1800 SecureDoc licenses will primarily be rolled out to internal consultants in 26 Information Centres in Germany, its Information Office in Brussels, and several associated offices in Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, and Spain. 

“WinMagic was the only disk encryption vendor that was able to meet DATEV’s strict requirements on security, usability and administration functionality in the given time schedule,” said Horst Bachmann, Head of the Communication and Security Products Department, DATEV eG.  “It was clear from the outset that SecureDoc’s ability to seamlessly integrate with DATEV’s existing two-factor smart card authentication technology at pre-boot would make it simple to add the full-disk encryption layer required to protect all data on laptops,” Horst Bachmann continued.  “Simple integration with existing security applications has also made SecureDoc a very cost-effective method for adding full-disk encryption.”

SecureDoc’s seamless integration with DATEV’s mIDentity tokens results from WinMagic’s collaboration with major authentication vendors to make it simple to combine the data security benefits of full-disk encryption and the identity management advantages of multi-factor smart cards, USB tokens, PKI certificates, and biometric devices at pre-boot. 

“Unlike other encryption solutions, SecureDoc makes it easy to combine multi-factor authentication with full-disk encryption at pre-boot, and that is why security-conscious organizations like DATEV increasingly choose SecureDoc to protect all data on desktops, laptops, and handheld devices” said Thi Nguyen-Huu, CEO & President, WinMagic Inc.  “When you consider that consultants using DATEV software are responsible for the financial accounts for two thirds of all medium-sized enterprises in Germany, or approximately 2.4 million financial accounts, it is rewarding to think that SecureDoc has been selected to protect such sensitive data.”

True to WinMagic’s guiding principle that “whatever you can do with an unencrypted disk, you should be able to do with an encrypted disk” SecureDoc supports disk-imaging capabilities, defragmentation software and other disk utilities, and hibernation mode.  DATEV users can even resize partitions on encrypted disks, or run repair utilities and perform data recovery on disks in case of virus infection. 

The cooperative DATEV eG, Nuremberg/Germany, is a software company and IT service provider for tax consultants, auditors and lawyers as well as their clients. They are supported by DATEV mainly in the fields of accounting, business consulting, taxes, enterprise resource planning (ERP) as well as organization and planning. For example, financial accounts of about two thirds of most of the German medium sized enterprises are carried out by tax consultants using DATEV software - which runs up to roughly 2.4 million financial accounts. For more information on products or services, please visit www.datev.com.

About WinMagic Inc.
WinMagic develops full-disk encryption software. WinMagic’s SecureDoc full-disk encryption suite provides unmatched protection of data stored on desktops, laptops, and other mobile devices by employing authentication from password to hardware token, TPM, biometrics, and PKI commencing right at pre-boot.  WinMagic’s award-winning product suite, which consists of SecureDoc, SecureDoc Enterprise Server, Compartmental SecureDoc, SecureDoc Mobile, and SecureDoc Personal Edition, meets the requirements of even the most security-conscious users by focusing on concrete policy-driven security features while still offering unparalleled flexibility which incorporates the Unicode Standard.  Utilizing Public Key Cryptographic Standard PKCS #11 (Cryptographic Token Interface Standard) from the ground up for extreme adaptability, the SecureDoc line has earned an impressive list of validations including NIST Cryptographic Module Validation, FIPS 140-2 Level 1 & 2, and is scheduled to achieve the Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4 (EAL-4) certification in early 2007.

Headquartered in Mississauga (Toronto), ON Canada, WinMagic operates through direct and indirect channel support in over 43 countries.  For more information on products or services, please visit www.WinMagic.com or call +1 905 502-7000, or email [email protected].