Seagate self-encrypting laptop hard drives earn NSA qualification

Seagate announced that the National Security Agency (NSA) has qualified the Momentus 5400 FDE.2 hard drive for use in laptops and other computers deployed by U.S. government agencies and contractors for national security purposes.

With the NSA qualification, the Momentus 5400 FDE.2 hard drive meets one of the highest standards for securing sensitive information — the National Security Telecommunications and Information Systems Security Policy (NSTISSP) #11. NSTISSP #11 defines requirements for a wide variety of products that “satisfy a diversity of security requirements to include providing confidentiality for data, as well as authenticating the identities of individuals or organizations exchanging sensitive information.”

The Momentus 5400 FDE.2 hard drive is powered by Seagate Secure technology, a security platform that couples strong, fully automated hardware-based full-disk encryption with leading security-based software applications to deliver centralized encryption key management, multi- factor user authentication and other capabilities that help lock down personal computer and data center storage.

Seagate Secure technology uses AES to encrypt all hard drive information transparently and automatically at full interface speed to prevent performance drags common among traditional software encryption products, giving organizations an easy, cost-effective way to comply with the growing number of data privacy laws calling for the protection of consumer information using government-grade encryption. The data security platform also makes it easy to repurpose and retire computers and hard drives without compromising sensitive information; all data stored on the drive is rendered unreadable by simply deleting the encryption key.