Posts Tagged ‘Hardware’

The Security of USB Flash Drives

Wednesday, November 19th, 2008

Even the biggest USB flash drive is still smaller than most people’s thumbs. Since we carry these devices to numerous locations, there is a fairly good chance that we will eventually lose them. If this should happen, most of us simply hope there was nothing sensitive on the drive. However, that is not the only thing you can do. There are some basic USB flash drive security measures available.

If your flash drive carries some sensitive information that you hope to keep from ending up online by the next day, security measures available range from secure partitions to encryption options. Secure partitions are a rudimentary form of security - a password protected partition is created on the drive, using a utility supplied by the manufacturer, this makes a public partition and a secure one.

In most cases, it is not possible to access these partitions at the same time, it is often necessary to log into the secure partition, hiding the public one. Not all controllers feature this limitation. Using a version of your utility, someone else could re-partition the drive. However, they would not have access to the data you have stored on the secure partition.

There are other USB flash drives that are much more specialised, they offer the same sort of secure, password protected partition. However, they also encrypt data stored on that partition, making it much harder for people to get to your data. While encryption algorithms can be broken, having encryption on your USB drive is an extra layer of security you can offer your data.

The down side to drives that use encryption is that some of them only perform this encryption in software that results in lower performance on the drive when encryption is enabled. Few manufacturers use a hardware based engine capable of encrypting and decrypting files at a higher speed to prevent performance penalties when you access a secure partition that’s using encryption.

The problem with both of these security approaches is that they are mostly dependent on software; the majority of manufacturers of USB flash drives only provide Windows based software support.

What does that mean for Macintosh users and people who use a Linux distribution or other unusual operating system? Security for USB flash drives is mostly still a matter of keeping good track of them. While it is possible to access public partitions on almost all systems, accessing the secure partition generally requires access to Windows.

USB flash drive security is still in its infancy, since these drives aren’t routinely used by people with a need to secure their data. As they become more widespread and the need for security increases, expect flash drive security options to increase as well. For now, partitioning and encrypting are the major options available, though.

Windows users are in luck and can make use of both of these options effectively to preserve their data. However, users of operating systems that aren’t compatible with the software on the drive must simply try not to let their USB flash drives fall into the wrong hands.

Derek Rogers is a freelance writer who writes for a number of UK businesses. For logo branded Custom Flash Drives, he recommends Flashbay.com.

Managed Hosting Can Help You?

Tuesday, October 28th, 2008

At present occupied and the competitiveness of the industry, the time for companies is not just an option. In the past, when a company of the CPU no, it meant a big problem. The time it takes to either replace or rebuild the CPU that had the potential to completely paralyze the company. In today’s market, there is no time to rebuild or replace and that many companies do not even have the option. However, further progress with companies once afraid of reconstruction and replacement of no longer have any reason to worry. With the new Managed Hosting worry about the CPU failure no longer has to be a nightmare.

Managed Hosting is a safe and reliable backup of the information about your CPU in the event of an accident or a system failure. The Good managed hosting system is not only extremely reliable, but is much cheaper than many forms of back-up place at present. With the Good system can work at ease knowing that in the event of a failure, the CPU Managed Hosting server backup 100% of your CPU and can provide very fast recovery time for the corruption!

Not only the housing offer managed backup for your CPU, but also offers much more. It is foreseeable that with the data transfer systems, 24 hours a day dedicated firewalls, which monitor and manage your CPU and other storage systems. It offers load balancing, which is beneficial to companies large and small, it enables all systems to share the same burden, rather than a machine is overloaded.

Managed Hosting with ensuring 100% uptime, some companies promise that you will have 100% of its network availability or you will receive 10% of their monthly fee back for half a day and even up to 100% the monthly fee! They can also provide a setting the hardware, meaning that if your hardware is not fixed within the hour, you get a 5% of their monthly fee back! Along with instant retrieval system, which means that if your system is not being worked on ten minutes and is not fixed in time, you get 10% of their monthly fee back! Apparently, most important, they can offer our support throughout the year.

Now think about it. The server crashes and has no Good Managed Hosting. You do not have the support to the floor, the hardware is not backup of your network is unavailable, your system can not be recovered and has customers waiting in his office for information on their promises. Can we really afford to lose customers, or will be so comprehensive as to wait three weeks to obtain these documents. I do not want to know! Good Managed Hosting is the top of the line back-up system for its top of the line of the company.