HyTrust Acquires HighCloud For Cloud Encryption

Terms of the deal were not released. The Mountain View, Calif.-based security vendor, which specializes in securing virtualized environments, said the move builds out its support of compliance and data privacy initiatives for customers' private, public or hybrid cloud deployments. In addition to access control, the platform helps address common misconfiguration errors that could put cloud-based data at risk to exposure.

"HyTrust represents the control point for cloud management, providing automated policy-based security for private cloud environments that can enable both trusted hybrid clouds and 'cloaked' public clouds," said Eric Chiu, president and founder of HyTrust, in a statement. "HighCloud encryption, meanwhile, can be deployed in private, hybrid and public clouds, ensuring data security and privacy as organizations migrate between these environments.”

[Related: The 9 Most Dangerous Cloud Security Threats ]

Mountain View, Calif.-based HighCloud Security, which was named by CRN as a 2013 Emerging Vendor, provides encryption, key and policy management to protect virtual systems and their data. The firm is one of a slew of emerging security vendors called cloud security brokers, which provide a number of security capabilities from authentication and antimalware detection to encryption and data loss prevention for the protection of Software-as-a-Service applications and hosted systems.

Solution providers told CRN that businesses are increasingly seeking ways to regain control of data being stored by business units in cloud-based systems. Businesses need a plan to identify and determine the level of protection that is needed for data residing outside the company's traditional perimeter, said Steve Olshefski, director of federal sales at Houston-based solution provider PCPC Direct. A variety of technologies are available from security gateways to control access and authentication to VPN to protect data in transit and encryption, Olshefski said.

"You have to have a strategy for encryption to understand where the data resides and what truly needs to be encrypted," Olshefski told CRN. "You don't want to buy a lock for everything in the house."

Some of the growing interest in cloud security measures is being fueled by the ongoing leaks about National Security Agency's Internet surveillance program, said Kyle Ingrelli, director of IT at Profound Cloud, a managed IT and cloud solutions provider based in New York. Solution providers also are increasingly working with clients on how to apply security to the cloud services they use, Ingrelli said. In most cases, businesses learn that they are tied to whatever security a public cloud provider offers, and gain increasing control in hybrid and private cloud implementations, he said.

"Encryption should be deployed often and whenever possible within range of needing the services to work properly," Ingrelli told CRN. "If someone gets into the access control system, they won't be able to access the data if it is encrypted properly."

HighCloud Security can support encryption and key management for data protection in public cloud deployments in addition to hybrid and private clouds. The company said it has had a close relationship with HyTrust, and both firms already have integration points to support their existing customer bases.

HighCloud deploys a software agent to encrypt data from within the operating system of a virtual machine. The company sells a Key and Policy Server appliance and a Virtual Machine Vault to encrypt virtual machines to secure data in storage and in backups.

Securing private cloud environments has been the primary focus at drug distributor and health-care IT provider McKesson. The company's strategy is to focus on private cloud first before continuing on to develop other options for hybrid and public cloud computing, said Merritte Stidston, director of development center transformation, strategy and technology at McKesson.

"Data encryption is a key feature that we have been requesting, and we're excited to see it added to the HyTrust offering,” Stidston said.

PUBLISHED NOV. 7, 2013