Sharkoon to Join the RFID Encryption Bandwagon

Sharkoon has announced an update to the Swift-Case line up of external hard drive enclosures, that would allow users to take advantage of the popular RFID encryption technology.

The majority of the computer users are careless when it comes to securing personal data, because they either don't know how to do it or they are not concerned with the loss of it. Privacy paranoids like me will surely enjoy the new Swift-Case model rigged with the popular RFID access control.

The Sharkoon Swift Swift-Case Securita for 2.5" SATA hard drives comes with built-in RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology, in order to protect the data against unauthorized access. The security lock is comprised of two units: the RFID transceiver within the silver aluminum enclosure and the accompanying RFID transponder that can be easily attached to a regular keychain to keep it handy all the time.

Before first use, both the RFID transceiver and the attached transponder have to go through a coding process in order negotiate a unique encryption key. Once the key has been set, the drive can be locked or unlocked by simply flashing the transponder over the enclosure server.

The RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) key is transmitted to the sensor and compared to the preset value. The radio bean itself is protected with the 128-bit AES encryption algorithm, that makes cracking nearly impossible. If they match, the user is granted access to the data. However, in the locked state, the disk drive will not be recognized by the host computer; moreover, it will look like a virgin one, ready to be formatted for the first use.

The enclosure protects up to three disk drives, that can be swapped in and out of the enclosure. The disks can be directly connected to the computer and used when unlocked, but when locked, the data is not available, even though they are not inside the enclosure. Sure thing, if you loose the transponder, you can wave goodbye to your data, but luckily for the user, there is a second transponder bundled with the application, that gets configured as a backup during the initial setup.