It was reported by the BBC on the 22nd July 2009 that three HSBC firms have been fined more than £3m for failing to adequately protect customers’ confidential details from being lost or stolen. The data was unencrypted and stored on floppy disks amongst other things. See the article, click here.

This is just the latest example of a high profile company and its their employees failing to take adequate measures to protect the personal data of their customers. With the increasing use of USB memory sticks to carry ever larger amounts of data around there is a growing need to inform and educate all those that use USB memory sticks on the benefits and the risks.

Some companies have now taken drastic steps and outlawed the use of USB memory sticks altogether. Whilst an understandable reaction it is not necessary when the implemtation of some basic security measures and working practices would deal with the issue.

The first step is to ensure that where sensitive data is being stored onto a USB memory stick that it is password protected and encrypted.

USB2U today announce the launch of a new slim, metal USB memory stick that can be engraved with your companies logo but more importantly if you have sensitive data, can password protect and encrypt and data loaded onto the memory stick. The encryption level is the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES-256) an encryption standard adopted by the U.S. government. The standard comprises three block ciphers, AES-128, AES-192 and AES-256 and is highly secure.

To unencrypt the data you need to use a password (defined by the user). You only have a limited number of attempts to use the password before you are timed out. You can even set the USB stick up so that it “shreds” the data after a given number of failed attempts. If the USB Memory stick is taken apart and attempts are made to read the data directly from the flash chip the data will still be encrypted.

This new product is called SecureX and its available in a range of memory sizes up to 16GB

SecureX

So, if you are thinking of branded USB Memory sticks but you’re concerned about the sensitivity of data stored on the stick they don’t abandon the idea just ensure you buy a memory stick with on-board security.

Tags: Branded Memory, Branded USB, Branded USB Memory, Branded USB Memory Sticks, customised USB

This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2009 at 12:09 pm and is filed under Promotional USB. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.