If you're like me, you've taken to carrying important data on USB sticks or flash drives. They're handy, you can use them on any PC, and with built-in encryption even if you lost them it was no big deal. Bad news: It's now a big deal.. The German security company SySS GmbH discovered that many, but not all, of today's encrypted USB sticks and flash drives are actually vulnerable to a relatively easy attack. It is not that the encryption itself-usually AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) encryption--that has been broken. It hasn't been. Despite what you may have read from some fear-mongers, AES remains unbroken. What has happened though is that it appears many vendors didn't think through how they let people use the encryption in the first place. When you use a new encrypted USB drive for the first time, the drive already has a default device password. When the device's software asks for you to enter a password, it places its device password on your computer to authorize your drive and your password. Once on the computer, SySS discovered that you could watch the password authorization process. That was bad enough. With it, a patient cracker could tease out what the device password was. What was worse was that the company discovered that companies were using the same device password on all their drives. Whoops. The link for this article located at IT World is no longer available. . Various password-protected USB sticks can leak credentials due to inadequate security measures, prompting worries about safeguarding sensitive information.. Encrypted USB, Data Security, Flash Drive Vulnerability, AES Encryption, Secure USB Drives. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
U3 is a platform for developing applications that install to and execute from USB flash drives. It provides these applications a means to execute, read, write and clean up after themselves once the drive is removed. I haven't actually used any U3 apps yet, but having bought a "U3 Smart" drive at OfficeMax (the SanDisk Cruzer Micro 512M), I became interested in the unique way these U3 drives present themselves as two separate disks, so that the U3 software is write-protect and can auto-run on Windows machines. This page documents my attempts at changing the U3 drive to modify the write-protected partition and control the autorun feature. . The link for this article located at Wesley McGrew is no longer available. . U3 Smart USB drives revolutionize portable storage with unique security features catering to modern users, ensuring easy access while protecting sensitive data. U3 Smart USB Drives, Autorun Security, USB Application Control. . LinuxSecurity.com Team
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