Get Security In A Flash

The ubiquity of flash-based USB thumb drives—driven by falling prices and increased supplies—makes them easy to store and go. Enterprises and consumers can take precautionary action to keep a lot of data from transferring to USB thumb drives. But what about data that does get transferred?

Consider, for example, someone who needs to import and store customer data onto a drive. Depending on the customer, or the business or the data, the solution may call for more than simple password protection. Instead, it may call for full encryption.

Here is where Kingston Technology has gone to work.

A number of encryption programs exist to add on to USB storage devices, and a number have simple password protection. In many cases that's good enough. But Kingston, though, with its DataTraveler Vault and DataTraveler Vault—Privacy series, installs advanced encryption technology right onto the thumb drive in both hardware and software.

The CRN Test Center took at look at the Kingston DataTraveler Vault— Privacy Edition drive. With 8 GB of storage, the device is password-protected; the password is entered by plugging the device into a PC, clicking on the DTFaultLock Format console, and then entering and confirming the password. With the DataVault edition, Kingston allows for data to be saved into either public or private areas on the drive. With the drive we examined, the Privacy Edition, there is no public area. All data goes into a "private area" and is encrypted, only becoming decrypted once the password is correctly entered.

(For testing in the CRN Test Center Lab, we entered a lengthy password with letters and digits.)

Kingston's DataTraveler Vault Privacy uses AES-256 (Advanced Encryption Standard, 256-bit) encryption. That means that when a key is used in the encryption of any data, the same exact key must be used to decrypt it. Otherwise, the bits remain unreadable.

In addition, after 10, consecutive failed login attempts, the drive is locked down. (Kingston explains that the feature is designed to thwart password-guessing applications that can quickly attempt millions of potential password combinations to break into a drive.)

What's also compelling about this drive is that it's cross-platform. The drive was set up on a PC running Windows Vista Ultimate, but it and its encryption worked just fine when we tested it on a Mac Mini running Apple's Leopard Mac OS X. Linux is not yet supported.

Kingston also provides a simple, software-based administrator console that can be used to change passwords, contact information, or languages, as well as "password hint." The password hint is the one area that makes Test Center reviewers uncomfortable. A dishonest broker, with a little knowledge about the administrator, could find a weak, human link in this security chain and break it. For now, we're willing to discount this weakness because of the overall strength of the solution and the fact that the password hint isn't a mandatory field.

Overall, though, we like and recommend the Kingston Data-Traveler Vault—Privacy device. Street pricing on the 8-GB unit we looked at runs in the $200 to $220 range, well worth it to provide an additional layer of data protection on what could otherwise be a very insecure device.

Kingston has done a terrific job of integrating hardware and software security into a thumb drive, and it should be an item that resellers and solution providers consider both for themselves and for customers who are looking for more than standard data security.

COMMUNITY: Connect with the Test Center at community. crn.com.