Addonics Debuts CipherUSB Family of Hardware Encryption Solutions

Addonics Technologies, Inc. announced a family  of USB hardware encryption solutions that protect sensitive data stored on HDDs, removable drives, flash media, optical media or in the cloud with bullet proof security.

The CipherUSB products use a FIPS certified AES 256-bit hardware crypto engine. Unlike software encryption products whose performance relies on the system processor power, the products ensure performance in a range of hardware. Because these solutions do not store passwords on the computer or in the system’s volatile memory, there is much better security than with software encryption.

The CipherUSB family consists of FLE (file level encryption) and FDE (full disk encryption) versions. Both offer a choice of ECB or CBC mode encryption, or a choice of standard authentication with no password entry or two-factor authentication, which requires a combination of password and the CipherUSB dongle. The CipherUSB FLE solution encrypts any file stored on any drive, media, network or cloud storage whereas the FDE solution encrypts the entire USB storage attached to the CipherUSB dongle.

Among the CipherUSB features is the option to write protect the boot sector or the entire disk on the USB storage attached to the CipherUSB. This solution is for protecting any USB storage against viruses or malware attacks. It is also for forensics applications.

The CipherUSB FLE is available in two flavors – the F1 and F2 series supports attaching external USB storage and the F3 and F4 series comes embedded with 4GB high speed flash memory. Every CipherUSB FLE comes with a virtual CD ROM that contains the CipherUSB utility so users can encrypt or decrypt any file under Windows or MAC OS. Once the file is encrypted, it can be securely emailed to anyone or transferred to any public cloud storage as a secured file. Only users with the correct CipherUSB FLE dongle will be able to access the encrypted files.

The CipherUSB FDE is a small USB pass through dongle that encrypts data stored inside any USB drive (thumb drive, USB HDD or any flash card inserted into a USB reader). There is no software or driver to install. There is no measurable performance difference on the USB drive and all software works the same as before. CipherUSB FDE is also OS independent.

The MSRP ranges from $29.95 for the CipherUSB FDE ECB encryption to $89.95 for the CipherUSB FLE CBC encryption for Windows and Mac.