Category Archives: secure devices

City worker loses USB containing personal details of every resident

A city in Japan has been forced to apologize after a contractor admitted he had lost a USB memory stick containing the personal data of almost half a million residents after an alcohol-fueled night out.

After spending Tuesday evening drinking at a restaurant, he realized on his way home that the bag containing the drive was missing, along with the personal details of all 460,000 Amagasaki residents. He reported the loss to police the following morning.

Of course, such an unpleasant situation could be completely avoided if the USB drive was encrypted with software such as USBCrypt.

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USB Combination Lock – a security joke?

One large nation-wide retailer is selling the following item on its web site:

USB Combination lock of sale

(click on the image to enlarge)

The web site urges you to get the device to “… keep your files safe”. Yet the combination lock contains only 2 digits (or just 100 possible combinations, from 00 to 99). How long would it take for someone to discover the combination, two minutes or maybe three???

For real security, consider a software encryption solution such as our USBCrypt. It lets you encrypt any USB drive (even those without any combination locks!) with strong AES encryption and thus make sure that no one would be able to get to your important files without the correct password.