USB sticks are extremely common and comfortable storage media. Most of the PC users carry large amounts of important information from work to their home computers and the other way around. While losing a flash drive would punch an insignificant $12 hole in your pocket, value of the information lost with the disk can be a little more difficult to evaluate.

SanDisk has just announced an important security update to its Cruzer Enterprise lineup, that adds an extra layer of protection to the stored data.

The new USB drive offering is managed by the company's CMC (Central Management & Control) server software, that lets the IT departments provision and monitor all of the drives until they get retired. More than that, the devices sport RSA SecurID software tokens. The two-factor authentication technology is comprised of an one-time passcode generated on the drive and an additional password for the drive.

"This is an ideal solution for employees who need to travel light and yet be fully connected, as well as for IT departments concerned with data security and regulatory compliance challenges," said Roy Ramati, Vice President and General Manager of the Enterprise Division at SanDisk.

"Adding RSA SecurID to our management and security solutions for the enterprise is a major step forward in our mission: providing IT professionals with tools to enhance employee productivity through mobility and remote connectivity," he continued.

SanDisk's Cruzer Enterprise flash drive takes data protection seriously. The drive uses military-grade hardware encryption via a 256-bit AES algorithm. Unauthorized users will have a hard time trying to access the data protected by the combination of encryption and password, even if the device is stolen or lost.

The Cruzer Enterprise flash drives come in 1, 2, 4 and 8 gigabyte capacities and can deliver data transfer rates of 24 MB/s for read and 20 MB/s for write operations. The drives are available now through SanDisk's retail partners, but there is no word on pricing yet.