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Wave Unveils EMBASSY Remote Administration Server Version 1.5

Wave Systems has announced the availability of its newest version of EMBASSY Remote Administration Server (ERAS), 1.5, its multi-platform server software that provides centralized administration and management for trusted hardware security throughout the enterprise. ERAS 1.5 features new, compliance-focused enhancements that enable organizations with full disk encrypting hard drives from Seagate to generate a detailed audit log of drive security events, thereby proving that encryption was never disabled by the user and that data on the drive remained protected. Plus, ERAS gives systems administrators the ability to enable and leverage Trusted Platform Module security chips for a multitude of security capabilities, including strong authentication to virtual private networks and wireless access.

Legislation requiring companies to publicly disclose real or suspected mishandling of personally identifiable information continues to proliferate. If a notebook PC or disk drive containing customer data is lost or stolen, organizations are in many cases obligated to report the breach if the data was not adequately protected. ERAS can verify that access to encrypted data is limited to authorized users. Furthermore, when ERAS is used to initialize and manage the security features of an FDE drive, local users are restricted from changing the drive's security settings, ensuring that only authorized personnel can make such modifications.

Deploying Seagate FDE drives with ERAS can significantly reduce the IT planning and overhead associated with traditional software solutions. Typically, it can take hours for an administrator to re-image a PC and encrypt data bit by bit using FDE software. Using ERAS, encryption can be enabled "out of the box" and deployment can occur within minutes. Because ERAS works in conjunction with Active Directory, extra time to create new groups of users on a domain is not necessary.

In addition to managing Seagate FDE drives, ERAS was designed to remotely turn on and manage TPM security chips, which function much like an embedded smart card, capable of generating keys as well as storing certificates and other critical information securely. This can enable a "layered" approach to data security. Using the TPM and Wave software, organizations can implement strong user and machine authentication, and can enhance network access control security.

Based on user feedback, Wave enhanced ERAS to provide additional capabilities for more simplified management of embedded hardware security. ERAS 1.5 now features:
- Integrated support for Microsoft Windows management infrastructure — This feature addresses the trend in role-based management, enabling different privileges for different users, thereby lessening the work for a single IT administrator.
- Help desk enhancements — Password recovery can be handled by help desk personnel through a Web-based interface. Administrators no longer have to be in close physical proximity to the server to operate ERAS and clients do not need to be connected to the domain to reset forgotten passwords.



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