U.S. Department of Agriculture Uses Spyrus Secure Pocket Flash Keys

SPYRUS, Inc. announced that two editions of its Secure Pocket Drive (SPD) have been made available for use by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) International Technology Services (ITS)customers.

Secure Pocket Drive allows users to run their own customized applications and third-party productivity software, such as Microsoft Office locally in addition to accessing corporate networks and virtual desktop infrastructures (VDI). The USDA estimates up to 40,000 units of the Secure Pocket Drive will be deployed to its personnel as a secure device in its support of the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010.

Designed as a secure trusted endpoint to augment a worker’s desktop and secure Internet and cloud computing applications, Secure Pocket Drive is a solution that boots the Windows Embedded Standard (WES) 7 operating system or Ubuntu Linux from a pocket-sized encrypting USB flash drive. Secure Pocket Drive can be booted on almost any Wintel or Macintosh desktop or laptop in less than 60 seconds.

For teleworkers who require remote access to the USDA Virtual Desktop Infrastructure exclusively, the USDA has integrated a custom read-only Ubuntu Linux LiveCD to be booted from the SPD Remote Access Edition, leveraging the hardware enforced read only access as an additional layer of protection. For executives who need offline processing power and secure data storage while traveling in airports and airplanes, USDA is planning the availability of the SPD Productivity Edition with WES 7 and targeting the SPYRUS Secure Portable Workplace for Windows To Go in the second quarter of 2013.

USDA executives understand the need to prevent cross-contamination of their stored data through the transfer of malware from host PCs as well as the potential for their laptop data being compromised by increasingly sophisticated hacking attempts against laptops carried by traveling workers. The extensive built-in security self checks of the Secure Pocket Drive make it extremely difficult if not impossible to successfully gain access to information held on the SPYRUS Secure Pocket Drive, or to the corporate network that is accessed by it.

Secure Pocket Drive employs the same on-board Suite B hardware security infrastructure that is built into the SPYRUS Hydra Privacy Card family. Sector-based full disk encryption of the internal memory where the operating system and applications are stored is based on XTS-AES 256 encryption (NIST SP800-38E) and Suite B cryptography is part of the DoD cryptographic modernization program.

With the Linux Remote Access Edition, USDA expects to realize hardware refresh savings and increased security as they will no longer have to provide government furnished computers for teleworkers with capable personally owned systems. They have demonstrated the capability to re-provision older computers that cannot boot Vista or Windows 7, even without a hard drive, to extend return on investment on these unused assets. USDA employees and contractors can safely leave the laptop behind in hotel rooms, or even lose it since the laptop contains no mechanism to store data or access the USDA network.

With the Windows SPD’s, multiple SPYRUS patents are used to lock the Windows OS to the device and provide cryptographic protection against modification to the boot loader and the operating system. The patented methods enforce on-the-fly integrity validation to enable fast and secure boot-up and enhance the user experience without suffering the performance or vulnerability penalties incurred by other bootable products. The patented Secure Pocket Drive was designed with FIPS 140-2 Level 3 hardware, US Government-approved next-generation cryptographic algorithms, and extensive built-in self-checking functionality to protect the device, the operating system, and the user.

"The USDA deployment of the Secure Pocket Drive validates the high assurance security techniques we utilize to protect against transfer of malware from host computers to corporate networks," said Tom Dickens, COO of SPYRUS. "USDA has discovered that everyone from executives to teleworkers to road warriors can use the Secure Pocket Drive for worry-free secure computing."

Secure Pocket Drive is protected by U.S. Patents 7,757,100, 7,380,140, 6,088,802, and 6,981,149, with other patents pending.