IBM is embarking on a massive rollout of desktop and laptop encryption, providing 355,000 employees with whole-disk encryption to keep data confidential.

Although IBM already uses encryption in pockets of its organization, particularly with Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions encryption in Lotus Notes, the rollout of whole-disk encryption marks Big Blue’s biggest-ever commitment to encryption with the enterprise-wide deployment worldwide through 2008.

While IBM is not itself a banking or healthcare provider, its customers that are have encouraged IBM to adopt encryption for purposes of sharing information. “We work with banking, healthcare and government agencies,” Alan Mitchell, IBM senior technical staff member for IBM’s office of the CIO, information technology security and privacy says. “We serve these markets and they are driven by compliance requirements.” He adds, “And we’ve had an increased loss in laptops as well.”

As with many other organizations riding the encryption wave, the two driving forces are concerns about data losses and compliance with privacy regulations impacting industry sectors around the world. (EMC’s CSO recently mentioned that the storage giant is encrypting all its laptops.) It just goes to show you, even companies that are not directly involved with banking or healthcare should be considering encryption since the may now have or eventually secure clients in those highly regulated industries.

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Why Encryption Should be Part of Your IT Security Strategy