March 2019 AST Magazine March 2019 AST Magazine | Page 27

drives,
these solutions are notoriously
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hackable and are not recommended for
serious security considerations.
The only encryption security for USB
drives must be always-on hardware
encryption that cannot be defeated;
in addition, many of these Encrypted
USB drives will offer tamper protec-
tion to defend against attacks direct-
ed at their internal components.
Encrypted USB drives are powerful
tools in closing security gaps and help
ensure another layer of security inside
and outside the firewall as well as com-
pliance by offering:
• FIPS Certification – this is how the U.S.
Government certifies that these drives
do what they are
supposed
to do and
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2019 - Edition
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provide different levels of tamper re-
sistance (the most common high-secu-
rity requirement is FIPS 140-2 Level 3)
• Latest encryption technology, such as
Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)
256-bit encryption in XTS mode
• Anti-malware/virus protection on
board to scan data being copied to the
drive
• Complex password protection to pre-
vent social engineering guessing of
passwords. - These must be combined
with password guessing attacks by
limiting the number of wrong pass-
words entered in a row resulting in
a drive reset when the last wrong se-
quential password is entered
Encrypted USB drives are designed to protect even the most sensitive data, using the strictest
security regulations and protocols.
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