14 DAY TRIAL // Flash drives may be common nowadays, but only a few of them can truly boast of offering high security features, like Kingston's newest addition to the DataTraveler series.
People who judge the DataTraveler flash drive series from Kingston to be a purely consumer-oriented, casual collection, based on sightings of such things as the R400, are in for a surprise.
Then again, it isn't really a big secret that the product series is fairly extensive, covering not just the every-day consumer segment, but also the needs of the enterprise and government sectors.
Indeed, Kingston offers DataTraveler 4000 and the DataTraveler Vault Privacy, dubbed portable security devices.
Now, the company has added a new drive to the collection, the DataTraveler 6000, which can have capacities of 2 GB, 4 GB, 8 GB and 16 GB.
In that order, the units are priced at $100, $116, $147 and $208, or 73.42 EUR, 85.16 EUR, 107.92 EUR and 152.71 EUR, respectively.
Some may frown at the prices, especially since USB 3.0 is not supported (USB 2.0 is used, for 15 MB/s and 11 MB/s read/write speeds).
The fact is that the units are loaded with such data security features that they earned Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 Level 3 Validation.
256-bit AES encryption is available, thanks to the patented Secured by Spyrus technology, using XTS block cipher modes (CBC and ECB).
Simply put, the DT6000 has very strong data protection, coupled with the 'military-grade' ECC (elliptic curve cryptography).
“While enterprises and government agencies need to be able to provide remote and mobile employees access to sensitive and confidential data, establishing security policies and deploying USB products that prevent data loss is as important and immediate as an organization’s network security,” said John Terpening, Secure USB business manager, Kingston.
“Using non-secure USB drives makes organizations vulnerable to data loss and breaches that can affect the company’s credibility with its employees, customers and partners. The DT6000 is the most secure USB Flash drive available and will meet the most stringent corporate or government requirements.”
For those that want specifics, an encryption key can only be inserted wrong for 10 times before it is destroyed. The password also has to be complex, with at least three of the four characteristics (lowercase, uppercase, characters and numbers).
This and many more are housed inside a rugged, titanium-coated, waterproof stainless steel casing measuring 3.06 x 0.9 x 0.47 inches (77.9 x 22 x 12.05 mm).