Software producer Wilken is a pioneer in encrypted mails – Südwestpresse

Ulm

The NSA scandal has highlighted the extent of Spahäktionen the Internet. But many companies are still too naive, it is at Wilken. There mails run encrypted and data server invisible from the outside

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This should not really many consignors electronic mail a precipitate in have found awareness: “An e-mail is like an open postcard – with all attachments.” So little discretion provides the message that PC or Mac user from applications such as Outlook and mail or mobile apps to their providers send. It makes the head of the computer center at the software maker Wilken, Harald Varel, attentive. The background: Wilken participates recently on encryption system of the Luxembourg provider regify, which also has a German subsidiary in Hüfingen. The company’s name stands for “Register & amp; Certify” about:. Register and ensure confidentiality

The system is therefore on the new encryption initiative of the German mail service provider United Internet (GMX Web.de.) addition, the offering with the introduction of “Pretty Good Privacy” (PGP) only the complete encryption of messages of their own accounts.

Wilken but now uses a method that works with any e-mail address, Worldwide, more than three billion. For Varel is the complete transmitter-to-receiver Mail Encryption in the face of Anglo-American secret services Spähaktionen and criminal hackers in the network a step for recovering the “digital sovereignty.” The regify-mail initially consists of the indication that it has received a confidential message from the sender openly mentioned. The message itself is in an encrypted attachment, for you need a corresponding key – requires downloading the regify software and ten years is available. Currently test weeks running in Wilken data center.

Varel is also why emphasis on security because Wilken with its standard business software is one of the main suppliers of the German electricity suppliers. For this reason, the family-run company has also joined the UP Kritis project to protect critical infrastructure in Germany. Various federal agencies are involved, UP represents implementation plan.

It is already clear that the data center must keep the personal information of customers as well as energy bills securely and confidentially. Varel: “It is secrecy.” This goes so far that even the IT staff has to be considered a security risk because it even has a physical access to the data storage (server) of corporate clients. In this context, Wilken also participates in a pilot project of Fujitsu and claims to be the first nationwide “Stealth Data Center”.

This means on the one hand, that the servers for attackers from the outside are no longer visible, while otherwise they are scanned by “port scanner” on open access. The hardware has the other hand, no longer has slots that can be tapped. Access to the server racks (racks) is via a complex biometric method in which shines through the palm vein and compared with stored patterns

All activities of the administrators -. In the data center working 22 technicians – are recorded and compared it with special programs if they meet normal daily operations. Otherwise strikes an alarm. For Varel it is worrying that the issue of IT security has not arrived properly especially in the SME sector. So there is little feedback to hacker attacks – presumably the companies have not noticed clever attacks. US firms are better in this area. Finally, the award of IBM applies: “data are more important than money.” Varel adds, “money you have in the vault.”

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