SecureDoc enable SickKids administrators to centrally manage laptops and removable media from a single central console

(31/08/2009)

Affiliated with the University of Toronto, SickKids improves the health of children by integrating care, research and learning. The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), Canada’s most research-intensive hospital and the largest centre dedicated to improving children’s health, wanted to take every possible precaution to protect all data on the laptops and removable media utilized by its medical, research and administrative staff.

It began researching full-disk encryption solutions. SickKids wanted to find a single encryption solution that would protect all data on its laptops as well as make it simple to manage its MXI Security hardware encrypted USB keys without causing any inconvenience to its busy staff.

SickKids researched all available full-disk encryption solutions before narrowing its search down to its top three options. The three solutions selected were then put through more rigorous testing.

“We selected WinMagic Inc’s SecureDoc, McAfee Inc’s SafeBoot and Utimaco Safeware AG’s SafeGuard Device Encryption for a comprehensive Proof of Concept,” said Crivianu-Gaita.

As well as scrutinizing each solution for high-level data protection capabilities, the Proof of Concept also included a thorough testing of each solution’s ability to protect data on Windows and Mac laptops, ability to integrate with existing security applications, ability to unencrypt data, data recovery capabilities, ability to support security policy protocols, client management and monitoring capabilities, auditing and reporting capabilities and preboot authentication functionality. Only SecureDoc met all SickKids’ data security requirements.

“SickKids already had multiple layers of security and numerous security policies in place, so it was critical that the selected full-disk encryption would seamlessly integrate with existing technologies,” noted Crivianu-Gaita. “We also wanted a single encryption solution that could protect data on both our Windows and Mac laptops as well as our MXI Security USB keys,” Crivianu-Gaita continued.

“Testing not only showed that SecureDoc was the only solution that could integrate with our complex environment, but it also confirmed that SecureDoc would enable our administrators to centrally manage laptops as well as removable media from a single central console.”

SickKids was also pleased to find that SecureDoc’s pre-boot capabilities meant that it would not interfere with patient care.

“As SecureDoc integrates with all devices at pre-boot users do not have to deal with a second log-in screen,” commented Crivianu-Gaita. “This transparency means that as far as users are concerned their laptops operate exactly the same with the encryption installed as they do without encryption.”

With the Proof of Concept completed, SickKids began a two-month pilot to ensure the installation and deployment of SecureDoc would run smoothly.

The pilot involved 25 laptops used by physicians, administrators and researchers. Testing confirmed that SecureDoc would make it simple for SickKids to centrally deploy enterprise-class ‘always-on’ full-disk encryption to all staff. As the solution installs in the background without any real degradation in laptop performance, staff would be able to continue to work as normal during roll out. Additionally, SecureDoc’s ability to seamlessly integrate with Microsoft’s Active Directory would ensure that administrators could quickly add or delete staff as needed going forward.

The pilot also confirmed that in the event of a staff member being unavailable, or if they had simply forgotten their password, centralized escrow and management of encryption keys would ensure critical data could still be accessed – because there would be times when SickKids could not wait for a particular person or password to access medical data.

“It is very important that we can access medical information immediately in the event of an emergency, even if the member of staff is not available,” explained Crivianu-Gaita. “SecureDoc enables the hospital to unencrypt data if a medical emergency requires staff to access patient data immediately,” Crivianu-Gaita continued. “First and foremost, we are a patient care facility, and patient care cannot be put on hold just because a member of staff is not immediately available.”

With the pilot successfully completed, SickKids has already installed SecureDoc on over 300 Windows laptops and is in the process of deploying the full-disk encryption solution on its Mac laptops. SecureDoc is also integrated with SickKids’ MXI Security hardware encrypted USB keys.

“SecureDoc ensures that we can protect all data on all devices, whether the data resides on a Windows laptop a Mac laptop or on removable media,” concluded Crivianu-Gaita. “The solutions flexibility combined with WinMagic’s willingness to meet our requirements makes us confident that we will be able to continue to protect all data on whatever devices we use moving forward,” Crivianu-Gaita continued. “And, SecureDoc’s transparent operation means that busy medical staff can concentrate on providing the top quality patient care for which SickKids is recognized rather than worry about data security.”

Related topics:  Data management and data security   Encryption   Mobile and Wireless Security 

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