NEW HAMPSHIRE COMPUTER SECURITY FIRM ANNOUNCES AGRESSIVE PRODUCT TO PROTECT AGAINST DATA THEFTPortsmouth Herald Local Business News: Data killers - Local company calls its products the ultimate in computer securityData killers - Local company calls its products the ultimate in computer security

By Michael McCord
mmccord@seacoastonline.com


PORTSMOUTH - "This tape will self-destruct in five seconds."
This memorable line from "Mission: Impossible" has gone from television fiction to information age fact. It’s an evolutionary step that could mean big things for Ensconce Data Technology because the company has developed and begun selling data destruction software and hardware.

"Everyone else is trying to create data, but we are trying to destroy it," said Jack Thorsen, president of Ensconce Data Technology, or EDT.

The emergence of a company like EDT, Thorsen explained, shows that the science of hard-drive data destruction has advanced just in time to fill a growing market need to ensure ultimate data protection through complete destruction.

"Anybody with sensitive information cannot afford to have their data stolen," Thorsen said. "Every business must have a method of data destruction, and we have entered a new world of data eradication."

In the case of one of EDT’s ‘Dead on Demand’ products, that literally means obliterating hard-drive data in a puff of chemical smoke, beyond forensic recovery, à la "Mission: Impossible."

It’s a technique that does not destroy the rest of the computer, the company says. In military terms, there’s no collateral damage.

Also, Thorsen explained, the destruction sequence can be initiated by as many as 15 triggers, and that includes remote options from anywhere in the world.

Located in a secure third-floor facility at the Harbour Place complex in downtown Portsmouth, EDT has remained in the shadows since its founding a little more than two years ago.

While a viable product line was being developed, the company was kept afloat by a pair of local angel investors (who have chosen to remain anonymous). EDT emerged from start-up status a few months ago, and its funding structure will soon change, as venture capital investors in the region have noticed EDT’s increasing profile - especially following an appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas recently, where the company attracted a lot of media attention.

In addition to Thorsen, a veteran of the data storage industry who has worked with IBM and who has degrees in physics and the law, EDT has put together a tech-experienced team of executives, which includes sales vice president Regan McCarthy, a graduate of the University of New Hampshire who has worked at Exxon and Dell Computer; Roger Detzler, the chief technology officer and principal inventor of the Dead on Demand product line; and general counsel George Venci, a local lawyer who specializes in hardware and software legal issues.

EDT has also tapped into the area’s research and development capacity by working with the UNH chemistry department to develop a special nontoxic, but destructive, chemical.

Information security has become big business - estimates are that $30 billion to $50 will be spent this year by government agencies, companies and private individuals in efforts to protect their sensitive data. And in an age of identify theft and sophisticated corporate espionage, protecting data has never been so important.

EDT, McCarthy said, deals in the worst-case-scenario sector of the information security market. It’s a sector in which EDT has little or no competition in terms of the breadth of its product line, which ranges from compact discs to data shredder to enhanced hard drives. And they all guarantee the same thing - complete erasure.

"If the hard drive is lost or stolen, it doesn’t matter. Within minutes (our products) eliminate everything," said McCarthy. He added that EDT is creating a niche market of its own.

Data destruction matters because data creation has mushroomed over the past two decades and because hard drives have become difficult to destroy, even when the computers themselves have been mangled.

Thorsen cites examples of laptop computers run over by trucks or recovered from the Amazon River - the hardware was destroyed, but the electronic data on the hard drives was recoverable because of the amazing advances in forensic data retrieval.

The privacy needs of the legal, medical, education and government sectors make them particularly vulnerable because federal law makes them liable for information they can’t destroy.

In addition, the explosion of PC use for both personal and business applications and the periodic replacement of the machines have left millions of trashed and recycled computers vulnerable to data theft.

"Everything is becoming digitized," Thorsen said, which makes all information vulnerable. That broadens the range of market applications for their ‘Dead on Demand’ product line.

"It would be the same for a law firm which needs to erase hard disks to special forces soldiers in the field," Thorsen said.

The new breed of special forces soldiers in particular are using the most sophisticated IT equipment in the world, Thorsen explained, and the data they accumulate, receive and share must be protected from loss, theft and capture.

EDT has already met with officials from the Army, Air Force, CIA, NASA and the Drug Enforcement Administration, and McCarthy said their "interest is very high."

Interest could also be high among the more unsavory elements, who might benefit from the capability of EDT products to protect them from police investigation.

But McCarthy said the company made a decision to create a "common, off-the-shelf product" that anyone can buy, and so far potential military and government agency buyers have not objected.

According to company figures, EDT hopes to capture a major portion of the "worst-case-scenario" market, and to get the word out, the company has a non-too-subtle marketing language that includes its catchy ‘Dead on Demand’ product line designation.

The company estimates that its overall revenues will grow to $130 million in the next three years.

EDT said that potential annual sales could range as high as $150 million from the military and government contractors; $75 million from government agencies; $300 million from commercial and nonprofit organizations; and $50 million from the consumer electronics sector.

Thorsen said EDT could add as many as 25 employees in the next year, but however much the company grows, Thorsen and the rest of his team said EDT has no plans to move from the Portsmouth area.


AT A GLANCE

Ensconce Data Technology
2 Harbour Place, Portsmouth
(866) 844-9335
www.ensconcedata.com