NEW YORK -- nCipher plc (LSE: NCH), a global leader in protecting critical enterprise data, today announced enhancements to its keyAuthority™ suite to deliver automation, scalability and availability for widespread data encryption. This evolution of nCipher’s enterprise key management solution addresses some of the fundamental data security challenges that arise as organizations open their networks to customers, partners and remote employees.

Companies must make it a paramount concern to protect data no matter where it may reside, according to a recent Forrester report, “Secure the Data, Not Just the Underlying Infrastructure,” Forrester Research, Inc., May 2006. Business and security pressures are forcing the industry to move toward a more data-centric approach in which information classification and data encryption become central components of IT security. The Forrester report highlights how organizations must integrate and interact more deeply with suppliers and partners to remain competitive.

Protecting data, wherever it is stored and whenever it moves, means organizations need to deploy encryption much more widely. As encryption inevitably becomes more pervasive within the enterprise, managing the cryptographic keys that underpin the process presents its own cost, scale and security challenges. As The Jericho Forum, an international IT security thought leadership group wrote in its Visioning White Paper, "Existing key management techniques are largely manual and difficult to scale, especially for symmetric keys."

nCipher Corp. Ltd.