Spyrus Secure Pocket Drive With Windows Embedded Standard 7

SPYRUS, Inc. announced another Microsoft’s Windows Embedded Standard 7, pre-installed on a secure USB flash drive.

Unlike other USB flash drives that run the Windows operating system, the patented Secure Pocket Drive was designed from the ground up with FIPS 140-2 level 3 certified hardware, US government approved next-generation cryptographic algorithms, and self-checking functionality to protect the device, the operating system, and the user data.

"This presents a new, exciting and tangible approach utilizing a Trusted Stack," said David S. Hill, Senior Manager of Business Development, Microsoft Trustworthy Computing. "For the first time, a truly trusted mobile computing environment providing security of data, identity, applications, and operating system is provided by cryptographically binding the operational and storage bits to the hardware of the device."

Secure Pocket Drive is available in three editions:

• The Remote Access edition is a read-only device designed for secure web surfing, virtual private network connectivity, and virtualized application access.
• The Productivity edition adds to this functionality by supporting the installation of applications such as Microsoft Office, with the ability to store user data on the device or on an external SPYRUS secure USB encryption device.
• The Productivity RO (Read Only) edition offers all of the functionality of the Productivity edition, except that data can be stored only on an external SPYRUS secure USB encryption device.

All editions can be customized to meet organization-specific requirements. Unlike a bootable CD, Secure Pocket Drive can be unlocked and updated remotely by authorized administrators using the Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) and Active Directory policy settings. Software installation and patches are supported and your system administrators need no additional training. The devices themselves can be managed through the SPYRUS Enterprise Management System (SEMS), which allows remote disable or destruction of devices.

A SPYRUS Hydra Privacy Card secure USB encryption device can be bound to a user’s everyday PC and the Secure Pocket Drive, allowing encrypted transfer of information solely between the two Windows environments. Even if the user knows the password, the Hydra Privacy Card cannot be unlocked on any other system, preventing information leakage by trusted insiders.

According to a report dated Jun 30, 2008, Ponemon Institute contacted 106 airports in 46 states and discovered that business travelers lose hundreds to thousands of laptops a week in US airports – 40 per cent of them at security checkpoints. And of the laptops that make it to the lost and found, just 33 per cent are reclaimed by the owner. The rest are sold off, leaving "potentially millions of files containing sensitive or confidential data that may be accessible to a large number of airport employees and contractors," according to the report.

"This device presents a new and exciting way to carry your personalized Windows environment in a lightweight and secure manner," said Tom Dickens, COO of SPYRUS. "Executives should seriously think about traveling with Secure Pocket Drive rather than lugging around a large laptop that could be lost or stolen."

Secure Pocket Drive uses the same on-board hardware security infrastructure that is built into the SPYRUS Hydra Privacy Card family, including AES CBC, ECDH, ECDSA, ECC P-384, and SHA-384, which together make up the National Security Agency’s Suite B cryptography, part of its cryptographic modernization program. Sector-based full disk encryption is based on XTS-AES 256 encryption (NIST SP800-38E).