While we all would like our
data to reside in "The Cloud," the reality for most of us
is that our data is on a USB flash drive. When I look at my own data
flow, I see 14 gigs of data, being used across no less than nine
computers- five at home, and four at work. For the stuff I am
actually working on, it is simply impossible to have it reside on one
computer, and the flash drive is what makes this work pattern
possible.
However, with that much
data, some of it is bound to be sensitive stuff that is not for
sharing. While I have never lost a flash drive, I know plenty of
others that have, and in the end they are an accident waiting to
happen.
Enter the Aegis Secure Key
USB flash drive. This is the drive that purports to allow a user to
have their flash drive, while having it secure if found. Security is
provided via a ten key numeric keypad. The Secure Key ships with a
default PIN, and it is a simple two minute process to customize the
PIN to a new one from 7 to 15 numbers long. It also forces a random
one for the "security lazy" as it will not allow a simple
repeating PIN such as "44444444," or a simple progression
such as "12345678."
The Secure Key is a little
longer than some USB flash drives these days, but to me it conveys a
sense of solid rather than bulk. It has an outer case of metal, that
clicks onto the body with a gasket making it water resistant. The
drive itself is a soft plastic, and has 3 LED's, and 10 numeric keys
to enter the PIN code.
The entire unlocking
sequence is built into the drive itself, and is done before plugging
the drive in. This is how the drive is compatible with Windows,
Apple and Linux OS', and will also work on a computer that one cannot
install software on, such as a locked down computer at work or in a
library. The USB is the 2.0 standard, and not the faster, but still
becoming common 3.0 standard. The Secure Key has a battery built
into it to run the unlocking process before it gets inserted into the
computer. Once it is unlocked, it behaves like any other USB key.
How secure is this drive?
Quite a bit actually. It sports 256 bit encryption of the data. If
the code for the PIN gets entered 10 times wrong, the drive gets
totally wiped. If you forget the code, there is no way for anyone to
retrieve it, and the only play is to reset the PIN code, and the
entire data gets wiped with the reset. All this adds up to beingFIPS 140-2 certified, which stands for the Federal Information
Processing Standard, which is the equivalent of "Top Secret"
to the US Government. This is serious security.
The drive is available in
various capacities from 4 GB to a max size of 32 GB. In testing, my
32 GB drive formatted to 30.7 GB available for use. The drive, given
the overhead of encryption and decryption, had an average transfer
rate of 6.7 MB/sec (range 4.8 – 15.6 MB/sec). The burst rate goes
up to 16.2 MB/sec. There were no errors on an HDTune error scan.
The drive comes in the
following capacities/price points:
- 4 GB - $65.00
- 8 GB - $95.00
- 16 GB - $125.00
- 32 GB - $179.00
While the price point is
high, it is at least partially justified with the quality of the
drive, and that the drive is encrypted at the level of the hardware,
and not with a simple software overlay. This makes it a most secure
solution, and also makes the drive compatible with any USB compatible
device.
-Jonas
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