Always more security for storing your data, this is the leitmotif of Kingston Digital which has just announced a new USB key encrypted: the IronKey Locker+ 50 (LP50).
Its objective is simple: to offer a key that offers a high level of security for the general public, thanks to 256-bit AES hardware encryption and an XTS encryption mode.
An enhanced level of protection
Well known for its storage and RAM solutions, Kingston Technology also deploys, through its subsidiary Kingston Digital, several ranges of USB keys that focus on security. The company’s latest product takes its mobile and secure backup ambitions up a notch.
The so-called Ironkey Locker+ 50 indeed offers superior protection compared to the brand’s previous products, in particular by using AES-XTS type encryption which preserves data from BadUSB and Brute Force attacks, combined with new options multi-passwords, passphrase, or backup from a personal cloud (OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox and others).
The major change generated by the LP50 therefore focuses on the encryption method. Kingston sought to eliminate weaknesses in ECB-like block ciphers (Electronic Code Book) or CBC (Cipher Block Chaining), typically used for USB flash drives. Instead, a newer block cipher has been favored with XTS. The latter uses two AES keys, one to perform the AES block cipher, the other to encrypt the value ” tweak “.
In a blog post, Kingston clarifies that “ it looks like a double cipher with two independent keys, but without a perfect equivalence » before adding : « Reversing this process decrypts the data. As each block is independent and unlinked, if stored encrypted data is corrupted, only the data in the damaged block(s) will be unrecoverable. With a chaining mode, these errors can propagate to other blocks during decryption “.
Interesting features, no price yet
The IronKey range will span storage capacities from 16 to 128 GB. Maximum speeds are 115 MB/s sequential write and 145 MB/s sequential read. The LP50 uses a USB 3.2 Gen 1 interface and includes a 5-year license to use the optional USBtoCloud service developed by ClevX.
Further security options bolster the product, including the new 10-64 character passphrase mode that lets you choose between a numeric PIN, a phrase with spaces, a word list and so on. The multi-password option has two modes (Passphrase and Complex) with administrator and user access.
The pricing of this range of IronKey keys has not yet been revealed.
Source : Techpowerup
3