Data security became easier for firms in October as PGP and Ingrian both stepped up their encryption capabilities with major new product announcements designed to ease the IT management burden associated with encrypting information and complying with legal regulations.

Ingrian networks launched a new addition to its DataSecure product line, the i110 DataSecure Platform, which enables firms to encrypt at the web server, the application server or the database level, as well as perform central key and policy management.

According to the firm's vice president of sales and marketing, Erich Baumgartner, the platform stores encryption keys centrally on an appliance, making them less likely to be compromised than software solutions which store the keys on servers.

"This gives firms the ability to deploy encryption in a manageable way and we allow encryption at a very granular level, right down to the column line of a database," he explained. "The Payment Card Initiative Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is speeding up the adoption of this technology, but we're seeing people deploy encryption for best practice too."

Meanwhile PGP announced upgrades to several products on their Encryptiuon Platform, and a new application which enables firms to encrypt specific files and folders that sit on shared drives.

PGP NetShare enables IT administrators to do back-ups and change access controls to individual files without compromising their security, according to the firm's vice president of marketing Andrew Krcik.

"People's idea of encryption is often out-of-date and this is a big barrier, " he argued. "The technology has changed so dramatically that it's highly automated and relatively simple but it's hard to persuade IT."

The product has seen particular interest from firms who have outsourced their IT function, or parts of the business which may come in contact with sensitive data, added PGP marketing manager Jamie Cowper.

Separately the company announced Mac OS X support for its newly upgraded Whole Disk Encryption product and an enhanced policy engine on the new version of its Universal Gateway Email solution.