PKWare Adds Encryption to Compression Software

Computerworld - PKWare Inc. last week said it's trying to make it safer for users of its PKZip data compression technology to send and receive files over the Internet by adding new encryption capabilities to the software.

The Brown Deer, Wis.-based company said Version 6.0 of PKZip for Windows and Unix users includes a new security module based on the BSAFE encryption technology developed by Bedford, Mass.-based RSA Security Inc.

The module lets users protect documents via password- or certificate-based encryption before they're transmitted, PKWare said. The company added that the Windows release also features new support for IBM's Notes software, which lets users compress and encrypt e-mail attachments.

PKWare also announced releases of its software for IBM's mainframes and iSeries servers that support up to 256-bit symmetric key encryption based on the Advanced Encryption Standard. The iSeries systems were previously known as the AS/400 line.

Securing Critical Data

Features such as the ones announced last week are crucial to corporate users who depend on PKWare's compression products to send or receive important data files, said Gene Knobloch, IS manager at Gilsbar Insurance Services Inc. in Covington, La.

Gilsbar has been using PKZip technology for several years to compress and send medical insurance claims data from its AS/400s to systems at its clients in the health care industry and to insurance companies and clearinghouses.

With an April 1 deadline looming for complying with the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Knobloch said Gilsbar plans to use PKWare's new software to compress and encrypt all records containing patient health information, as required by the law.

The new encryption functionality has been very easy to implement, he added. But Knobloch said many of the clients and insurers that Gilsbar deals with have standardized on encryption technologies developed by Palo Alto, Calif.-based PGP Corp. Because of that, it has been a challenge to get some of them to accept encrypted PKZip files from Gilsbar. "But we are taking that on one client at a time," Knobloch said.

PKZip and similar compression technologies have primarily been used at the client level in the past. But now, "there is significant interest in compression and encryption at the server level for batch file transfers," said David Thompson, an analyst at Meta Group Inc. in Stamford, Conn.

Encryption that's built in at the operating system level, which Microsoft includes with Windows, generally works well for protecting files on individual servers, Thompson said. But technologies like PKWare's can protect files even when they're transferred from one system to another, he added.