Ceelox Vault 2.1 is a client software product that uses software-based encryption to create encrypted "vault" folders on the hard drive. It's primarily designed to work with biometric authentication, but can also be used without it. The product is meant to be installed on client host machines and is compatible with Windows 2000, 2003, XP and Vista.
Installation is very quick and easy. The footprint was surprisingly small on our Windows XP SP2 test machines. Using a plug-and-play fingerprint scanner makes installation and enrollment of your fingers much easier as well, and Ceelox supports many different types of devices. The official list of devices includes Authentec, UPEK, LighTuning Technology (acquired by Egis Technology) and Symwave. These readers can be found on a host of vendor computers from IBM, Dell and others. Ultimately, the software installs, enrolls your fingers for authentication, and then creates virtual vaults. These vaults are encrypted folders, into and out of which you can drag and drop files, so that the encrypted instances are only accessed by a user using strong methods of authentication.
The use of the software was very easy, and it also features a synchronization mechanism so that unencrypted and encrypted versions of your files can be changed in one place and synchronized in the other. The software can be used on portable media drives as well, adding an additional layer of security for these devices. The software does not have a centralized enterprise management console, and its feature set is limited to creating only the vault folders on a hard disk, coupled with biometric authentication support.
Ceelox provided ample documentation in the form of a help file and a PDF file. Setup and configuration was easy to understand. The support website has some informative tutorials, FAQs and
a customer portal.
The Vault 2.1 software is priced at $69 per user. Support is available from basic maintenance to customized packages. Annual maintenance, for 20 percent of the license cost, provides eight hours a day/five days a week phone and email support.
