Viasat UK: Up to 1TB M.2 DARC-SSD Data-At-Rest Encryption Storage Device for Defence Customers

Viasat UK Ltd. announced a next-gen encryption storage solution, the data-at-rest cryptography SSD (DARC-SSD), as the latest addition to the company‘s hardware encryption family, providing secure data protection for government and defence agencies around the world.

DARC-SSD front and rear

Data-at-rest technology safeguards vs. when a device is stolen, lost or attacked, enabling the data to be entirely protected and secure, even without the device on hand. With threats increasing from adversaries, new encryption technology is critical to maintaining secure control over IP, personal and financial data, as well as protecting sensitive mission information that could put military operations at risk.

DARC-SSD expands on the firm’s line of Eclypt encryption solutions and is the first encryption storage device in the company family of data-at-rest solutions. Unlike previous the firm’s encryption solutions, it uses a NVMe interface, which offers increased compatibility and integration with the latest commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) devices. Its small hardware footprint (M.2 2280) is designed to offer defence customers advanced data-at-rest encryption capabilities for protecting sensitive information on smaller, more compact laptops, tablets and small form factor (SFF) machines at Top Secret level and below.

“As the volume of mobile devices used by government and militaries grows, there are increasing concerns about the security of devices if they fall into the wrong hands,” said Andrew Dobson, CTO. “However, with our DARC-SSD technology and its tamper evident design, we are confident that if a device is lost or stolen on the battlefield, the data will remain protected and secure at the highest levels of data security. Our continued investment and innovation in encryption and data-at-rest cryptography aims to help customers stay ahead of modern adversaries and have solutions that meet evolving device and OS security needs.“

DARC-SSD was built with direct input from the UK National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) for meet the requirements for securing highly sensitive defence and national security information. The military level 256-bit AES hardware offers full drive hardware encryption for all data and the OS. The DARC-SSD works by decrypting data upon bootup of the device with the proper mandatory 2-factor authentication and then encrypting data immediately when the device is powered off. Unlike software encryption done by the OS, hardware encryption has no impact on overall device performance. Additional benefits of DARC-SSD include quicker loading times and lower power consumption, and it will be available to defence customers in 256, 512GB and 1TB storage options.

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