ST Electronics debuts DigiSAFE DCM200 smartcard-protected HDD enclosure

ST Electronics is showing off a new drive case at CES, the DigiSAFE DiskCrypt Mobile DCM200, that's been touted as the world's first USB 2.0 external enclosure with smartcard protection. The drive offers "2-Factor" protection, requiring users to insert a smartcard and then enter a PIN before they can get at the hardware-encrypted data. Since everything is done by the hardware of the enclosure, the DCM200 is completely OS-independent and requires zero software installation on the host machine. The units will start shipping March 2008 for about $999 $99.

Update: ST Electronics clarified with us that this price is actually $99, not $999 -- that's quite the relief!

[paragraph @ Jan 9th 2008 10:23AM]

$1000 for just the case? Rough...

I really think software level encryption aught to be good enough for anyone, but what do i know, i'm not that paranoid...

[OneLove @ Jan 9th 2008 11:14AM]

Its for people hiding info on black ops movements, foreign accounts and drug transactions, so they got money to burn.

[Student Driver @ Jan 9th 2008 1:31PM]

It isn't good enough.

[Jesse @ Jan 9th 2008 11:14AM]

If you wanted the data, since this is all hardware, couldn't you just take the hard drive out of the special case and end up with an unencrypted hard drive?

[ScareyJ @ Jan 9th 2008 11:25AM]

I believe the hardware encryption acts as the man the middle between the interface and the hard drive ... so the data residing in the hard disk is always encrypted. Remove it and you have a drive containing encrypted data.

[BeniRose @ Jan 9th 2008 11:18AM]

Couldn't someone just take the harddrive out of the enclosure and all that security is gone?

[ScareyJ @ Jan 9th 2008 11:32AM]

Hardware encryption is needed badly to maintain performance and security. An external enclosure is nice but I'd prefer the embedded controller implementations directly on the drive; especially for laptops. All too often we hear of laptops lost or stolen with social security numbers, accounting data, ...

[Standingfast @ Jan 9th 2008 11:52AM]

The electrical contacts on that "card", look just like the ones on my AT&T SIM card...

[thethirdmoose @ Jan 9th 2008 12:09PM]

That's because a SIM card is a smart card.

[scorcho @ Jan 11th 2008 8:21AM]

The unit will actually start from US$99, not the $999 reported, which is probably a typo. And since this features hardware encryption, the contents of the enclosed drive are all encrypted. Therefore, even if you dismantle the drive, you will not be able to access it. Effectively, the drive is useless without the unit, smart card and PIN.

[Pete Steege @ Jan 11th 2008 10:36AM]

Great standalone implementation of drive-level Full Disk Encryption (FDE). The box is a relatively trivial feature. It's the key management that is the value add of this product. FDE is so secure that if you lose your password, so might as well throw the drive away.
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