Thales Delivers Comprehensive Enterprise Key Management Capabilities with keyAuthority 4.0

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Thales, leader in information systems and communications security, announces keyAuthority 4.0, the industry’s most comprehensive hardened key manager, providing full support for Key Management Interoperability Protocol (KMIP) version 1.1. Developed by the OASIS standards body, KMIP will be a critical enabler of broad enterprise key management that can span numerous encryption use cases and cryptographic applications.

Enterprises today understand the importance of cryptography to ensure the security of critical data – both on premise and in the cloud. However this creates a significant key management challenge, particularly as the number of applications and devices, often from different vendors, increases. To combat complexity, unnecessary operational costs and to ease compliance, valuable operational efficiencies can be gained by centralizing and automating key management. The value of separating key management tasks from the applications that use the keys is further increased in virtualized and cloud environments, where organizations can retain in-house control of keys and still take advantage of cloud-based encryption and data storage. KMIP is the first widely accepted industry standard for key management allowing organizations to gain these benefits while applying consistent controls and security policies.

News facts:

With KMIP 1.1 protocol support, enterprises are now able to expand the numbers and types of encryption applications supported under a single, unified key management system to achieve consistent security policy, simplified administration, auditing/reporting and economies of scale.
With the broad industry acceptance of KMIP, customers can deploy key management solutions to solve immediate needs with the confidence that they can be extended to support future use cases with minimal impact. keyAuthority 4.0 provides KMIP-enabled interoperability for encryption-enabled products from leading vendors including Brocade, NetApp and Quantum.
keyAuthority 4.0 offers the broadest and most complete support for KMIP 1.1, combined with market-proven enterprise capabilities such as the automation of key lifecycle management controls, high scalability, redundancy, support for multi-tenant environments and sophisticated administrative role separation and key segregation.
Delivered in a tamper-resistant and tamper-evident hardware platform certified to the stringent FIPS 140-2 Level 3 standard, keyAuthority 4.0 offers long-term reliable protection of keys on behalf of an organization’s most critical applications and sensitive data.

Rich Mogull, analyst and CEO, Securosis, says:

“Increasing privacy concerns, regulations, use of distributed and cloud computing, and even BYOD, are all driving increased use of encryption in more diverse organizations than we have seen before. Sometimes the encryption implementations do a fine job of handling encryption keys themselves, but we see plenty of use cases and specific implementations where it makes far more sense to shift to an external key manager.” (Understanding and Selecting a Key Management Solution, Securosis, February 2013).

Jack Rondoni, Sr. Director, Product Management, Brocade Data Center SAN, says:

“The ability to protect as well as dependably recover encryption keys used to secure confidential information is absolutely essential, making the selection of key management solutions a critical component of the encryption system. Brocade enterprise-class data-at-rest encryption platforms with its KMIP-compliant key management client are tightly integrated with keyAuthority to ensure reliability and operational transparency throughout the key management lifecycle. Together, Brocade and Thales enable enterprise and cloud service provider data centers to deploy a comprehensive data encryption strategy with a single point of management for all encryption services.”

Eric Bassier, Director, Product Marketing, Quantum Corporation, says:

“Security of digital data is critical to all of our customers, that is why Quantum continues to partner with companies like Thales to support the KMIP standard and give customers the flexibility to choose the right solution for their business. The keyAuthority high-performance appliance, combined with KMIP 1.1 support, provides a reliable and extensible approach for customers seeking a standards-based solution to key lifecycle management.”

Laurent Liscia, OASIS Executive Director and CEO, says:

“KMIP is widely acknowledged to be the key management interoperability solution. Its success is a testimony to the hard work and commitment of Thales and the other members of the OASIS KMIP Technical Committee. We applaud Thales for its role in advancing KMIP 1.1 and look forward to its continued contributions on behalf of open standards."

Richard Moulds, vice president strategy, Thales e-Security, says:

“keyAuthority is deployed in some of the most demanding environments, including financial services and government, where high levels of assurance and reliability are critical. Building on our history of developing trusted hardware security modules (HSMs) and key management solutions, and our experience as one of the founders and thought leaders behind KMIP, Thales is ideally positioned to satisfy partner and customer requirements for key management systems that can ultimately support the entire organization.”

Supporting resources:

Thales keyAuthority
Pragmatic key management for data encryption: Securosis
Understanding and selecting a key management solution: Securosis
Key Management for Dummies

keyAuthority 4.0 will be available in Q2 2013. See demonstrations of keyAuthority at the RSA Conference, February 25 – March 1, 2013 in both the Thales booth #517 and the OASIS KMIP interoperability showcase booth #3012.

For industry insight and views on the latest key management trends check out our blogs www.thales-esecurity.com/blogs

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About Thales e-Security

Thales e-Security is a leading global provider of data encryption and cyber security solutions to the financial services, high technology, manufacturing, government and technology sectors. With a 40-year track record of protecting corporate and government information, Thales solutions are used by four of the five largest energy and aerospace companies, 22 NATO countries, and secure more than 80 percent of worldwide payment transactions. Thales e-Security has offices in Australia, France, Hong Kong, Norway, United States and the United Kingdom. www.thales-esecurity.com

About Thales

Thales is a global technology leader for the defence & security and the aerospace & transport markets. In 2011 the company generated revenues of €13 billion with 67,000 employees in 56 countries. With its 22,500 engineers and researchers, Thales has a unique capability to design, develop and deploy equipment, systems and services that meet the most complex security requirements. Thales has an exceptional international footprint, with operations around the world working with customers and local partners. www.thalesgroup.com