While flash memory has revolutionized business communications, promotional USB memory, when used to share data and important or even confidential information, requires a bit of foresight before a company decides to distribute a whole series of flash drives to end users.
A few extra steps may be required to ensure files that are pre-loaded remain secure and, if extra space for storing files is provided, that the flash drive remains useful to the widest possible audience.
Let’s say, for instance, that your company wants to distribute a product catalogue or an annual report to a select group of retailers that your firm normally does business with. To reduce the cost of printing hard copies and distributing them by mail, you decide to generate a bulk order of promotional USB memory sticks for easy reference within your sales network.
How do you ensure that this competitive information doesn’t end up in the wrong hands? The first step is to distribute these memory sticks only to authorized representatives that will have likely filed non-disclosure agreements with your company in advance. This ensures a measure of control over who has the information and how it is utilized.
The second step to protecting proprietary information is to encrypt or restrict the use of the files themselves. A distributor can pre-load data files with read-only access or include password protection that requires a user to enter a password to open the file. Strong encryption technology can delete files completely after a finite number of unsuccessful attempts to open a file.
In this way, marketing agreements between retailers and manufacturers, policies and procedures, and confidential data are protected and the risk of unauthorized access by competitors is minimized. If files are accidentally deleted or a flash drive malfunctions, a control group could retrieve the memory stick before replacing it.
These measures apply most in institutions where information is most specific and ultimately valuable, like government, non-profit, and civic organizations, universities, large corporations, and private interest groups.
promotional USB memory sticks distributed to employees or managers of these entities are not just handy tools for sharing information, but are company-owned assets that are subject to accountability and proper use, especially among principals with some measure of authority and cultural or professional influence.
Another factor in relation to data integrity and promotional USB memory is the issue of compatibility. In some cases, older computers will have problems running pre-loaded movies or applications that are native to newer operating systems like Windows Vista and Windows 7.
In addition, security firewalls designed by IT groups to protect corporate networks may prevent auto run capabilities for audio and video files or certain file types that could be used to spread computer viruses.
A corporation or an LLC, then, has important challenges with regard to IT security and data integrity. When designing and ordering promotional USB memory sticks, these firms must develop acceptable use policies, limit access to computers with USB drives, and keep antivirus software programs up-to-date to protect their company’s interests and ensure successful transactions when sharing information.
