SecureUsbDrives
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Victorinox offers refunds for secure USB drives in light of discontinued software updates
Software support and security certificates are coming to an end for Victorinox's line of secure USB drives, but the firm announced on Facebook that it's offering customers full refunds until December 31 if they'd like to return their products in light of the developments. In order to avoid losing data, owners of the flash drives should perform a backup before the encryption application meets its untimely end on September 15th. However, files stored on non-encrypted areas of the device will remain accessible without further action. The Slim, Secure and Presentation Master storage sticks can still be used as run-of-the-mill thumb drives after the cut-off date, but the Swiss Army Knife maker's application will no longer be able to scramble or unscramble their contents.
Victorinox nixes software updates for USB drives, security certificate to expire in September
Victorinox may have offered a hefty bounty to crack its secure USB drives' encryption, but the storage sticks seem to have met their match another way: the end of software support. In an email sent to customers and a pair of Facebook posts, the firm announced that it will halt updates as of next month and that its security program's VeriSign certificate is only valid until September 15th. As a result, customers are urged to backup their data lickity split. According to the outfit, the economics of continuing application development just weren't reasonable and it'll now refer to a third party for all software. However, the Swiss Army Knife maker isn't out of the flash drive business -- it's committed to putting more of the devices on the market. We've reached out to the company for more details on how the thumb drives will be affected and we'll update when we get word. In the meantime, hit the source links for the notice or check out the e-mail below. [Thanks, Scott]
Fujitsu's secure USB tech keeps your data from wandering off (or just plain deletes it)
With corporate espionage on the rise, you just cannot be too careful, right? We've all heard the horror stories: Someone takes a spreadsheet home to do a little number crunching on his personal PC and, next thing you know, some ne'er-do-wells in Tehran have the specs for the President's personal helicopter. Well, the brain trust at Fujitsu Labs has put its collective heads together and come up with a pair of new technologies aimed at preventing sensitive information from getting into the wrong hands. First, the "secure USB memory device" is a thumb drive containing a processor and a battery. Data security policies can be set to delete data after a specific period of time or if the drive is accessed by an unauthorized computer -- handy if the thing gets lost or misplaced. Second, the company's "file redirect technology" restricts the data to the USB memory device itself, or to a specified server. The company is currently conducting internal trials of the technology, but we'll let you know as soon as we see one of these bad boys in the wild.[Via Akihabara News]
