We are happy to announce that COMODO Disk Encryption 1.0.0.43 BETA is available for download and testing.
What is COMODO Disk Encryption?
Comodo Disk Encryption is a disk encryption software which protects your sensitive information by encrypting it using several algorithms.
Comodo Disk Encryption offers two means of data protection:
1: You can encrypt any partition with different encryption settings. Even root partitions can be encrypted. All encryption settings are saved on a USB stick which acts as a hardware key.
2: You can save your sensitive information on virtual encrypted partitions. This virtual partitions are protected by user password.
What’s best about it is that all encryption/decryption processes are performed on the fly(no reboot needed).
Why would you need such a product?
because you want to be the sole person that is able to start a specific computer,
because you don’t what your data to be accessed while you are away,
because if your computer gets stolen none will be able to access your data,
because when you share the computer with someone else you want to have a partition just for you,
because if you are an administrator might want to have a encrypted partition on multiple computers to store critical data,
because when necessary, all you have to do to make your data unrecoverable is to destroy the USB key
Known Issues:
If USB stick is plugged in when the computer is started and the USB stick is formatted as FAT, you might get a “Missing Operating System” message(issue fixed in next BETA release).
BETA NOTICE: This product is intended for special users(BETA Testers) who would like to join the testing process. It may contain major bugs tht could cause serious problems and not be suitable for your everyday use yet. Please do not use it in your production machines.
Download Locations:
Setup for Windows Vista 32-bit, Windows XP 32-bit and Windows 2000 SP4
I hope people can understand the Depth and Breadth of Comodo’s Research and Development capability. We are serious about delivering Security and Trust, Period!
This will mean everything from a firewall to disk encryption to secure email! We will deliver it!
I did not test CDE so forgive me if I’m off-mark but few scenarios came to mind.
Maybe there should be an alternate method of booting as default as forcing booting on usb could be counterintuitive.
Even a fallback master password method could be useful (enabled by default but with an option to disable it)
I guess this requirement is somewhat related to a bios option I see sometimes “enables access to USB disks from DOS” or “USB/Legacy” as I guess CDE don really boot from the usb key.
In my PC I can press F8 to select an alternate boot media but I cannot preset flash usb booting if I remove the usb key.
I can only set boot device priority (ATAPICD HD FLOPPY) of attached devices.
Anyway in case someone cannot verify if his machine meets the requirements and encrypts the bootup partition then a master password could prove useful.
This will also prove useful if the usb key is lost or damaged (but I guess that could be also useful a feature to create a spare usb key token)
This feature comes in the next release. Because there are so many BIOSes we have a “Simulation before encryption”, (not a lengthy process) which checks if the user will be able to boot after encryption.
CDE doesn’t boot from USB. CDE needs this feature because it works with the USB key at boot time. If “booting from usb” isn’t supported/enabled, accessing the USB at boot time isn’t possible. CDE’s boot application requires the encryption settings before system booting. If it doesn’t find the USB at boot time it won’t be able to copy the encryption settings so it won’t be able to decrypt.
A senario comes to mind, a “hacker” steals multiple identities and saves them to the encrypted disk, destroys the usb key. Later on the police come to apprehend the suspect, the “hacker” is confident that the authorties cannot charge him with any crime because they cannot access the information on his hard disks. Does this make any others cautious of this product?
This is meant for the general public I believe, and of course others, but I believe (no disrespect to Melihs crew intended) that law enforcement would have a way of getting around this and/or breaking the encryption. I figure they would have to. I don’t think it’s the first disk encryption software out there and won’t be the last probably.
2 I’m sure the development crew can get around this without much trouble or sort of reverse encrypt it. All the police do is contact Comodo and I’m sure they’d take care of it somehow.
Understandable, but there are those who do it because they can. The “hacker” may have just wanted to do it to cause chaos like so many on the internet.
I guess the worry here could be if the USB key is lost/broken, the computer might as well be reformatted and everything lost? Also, will it be possible to encrypt just certain folders from within Windows in future?
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