RATING BREAKDOWN
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QUICK READ
- Strengths: Offers both hardware and software-based full disk encryption.
- Weaknesses: Can be a bit daunting for the aveage user. Support resources are lacking.
- Verdict: Strong list of options, which can be bolstered by providing value through enhanced support resources.
Secude FinallySecure 9.2 is both a hardware and software-based solution for full disk encryption. The hardware component, which is integrated into the hard drive using a chipset, helps to secure physical disks. Currently, only the Seagate Momentus FDE hard drive is supported for hardware-based encryption. Also, software-based full disk encryption is supported for various Windows-based hosts. Both of these approaches are managed centrally via a management console.
Installation of the product was simple enough once we thoroughly read the documentation. There are many installation files, which can be a bit confusing if you haven't done your homework. We installed the management console on our Windows 2003 server test machine, and client software was pushed to Windows XP SP2 hosts.
FinallySecure performed well during all of our tests. We did experience a small hiccup during our client setup and the initialization of pre-boot authentication. We hit the "cancel" option instead of "ok," but our series of initialization screens were somewhat voided and we could not initialize the process again without uninstalling and reinstalling the agent. Once we were able to successfully install our client components, there were lots of features and options that we could choose to deploy. Finally-Secure offers quite the menu choice of encryption options, including various flavors of DES, AES, Blowfish and others.
Encrypting our client hard drives took quite awhile, one of the longest times we've seen with a software full disk encryption product. However, the hardware chip-set of the Seagate Momentus drive brings impressive performance.
There were plenty of PDF files supplied with the product. The manuals contain a lot of information, which is, indeed, needed when acclimating yourself to the installation components of the overall solution.
Purchase of the product costs $133 per seat and includes one year of phone and email support. After the first year, support contracts are available for 20 percent of the purchase price. The Secude website is lacking, however. The only support contents found were a few FAQ items, some download links and an online support request form. A support phone number was not found on the site.
