Network World — Sophos today unveiled a software suite for Windows desktops that combines full-disk encryption with antimalware, network-admission and port controls, and host-based intrusion protection.

The encryption features in the Endpoint Security and Data Protection suite are based on technology that Sophos gained in its acquisition late last year of Utimaco. Versions of Endpoint Security and Data Protection for the Macintosh and Linux operating systems do not include the encryption capability, but are otherwise the same, according to Rainer Gawlick, chief marketing officer at Sophos.

Endpoint Security and Data Protection today includes two separate management consoles for the Utimaco encryption and Sophos antimalware capabilities, but integration is underway and it's expected the management consoles will be merged in the near future, Gawlick says.

One end-user, Aaron Hurt, information security manager at CoVantage Credit Union in Antigo, Wis., says he doesn't find the current situation with the management consoles to be a particular drawback.

Hurt, whose organization uses several Sophos security products, including the Sophos e-mail filtering appliance, plans to roll out the Endpoint Security and Data Protection software suite to just less than 200 Windows-based computers. The credit union has also been testing PGP Corp.'s whole-disk encryption technology, but buying encryption as part of the overall Sophos suite seems less costly.

Full-disk encryption is expected to be able to soften the blow should any of the credit union's computers ever become lost or stolen, since the data on them would be encrypted. "Encryption gives us time to mitigate the effects should that happen," Hurt says.

Sophos Endpoint Security and Data Protection, available now, is priced around $56 per seat, depending on volume.