WE RECOMMEND
- Canadian Team Induces Fear Due to Old Flaw in USB
- DoD Lifts Ban on Flash Drives, Great Relief for Secure USB Storage Makers
- Kingston Shows Admirable Response to Security Flaws Found in DataTraveler
- Windows 7 Says No to Autorun for USB Flash Drives
- DoD Looking to Remove Ban on Flash Drives (Conditionally)
- $250k Bounty on Heads of Conficker USB Worm's Creator
- Commies are no Match Against Conficker USB Worm
- Japanese Military Thumbdrive Gets Stolen, Loaned Out & Thrown Away
- Corsair Flash Padlock Not So Secure... (The Dutch Said it)
- msramdmp - Bootable Flash Drive Circumvents Disk Encryption

Following the admonition of Kingston more supposedly secure drives are found to be vulnerable. Details have emerged of the far too simple hack that makes quick work defeating certain encryption programs. The drives themselves remain secure except the common software that opens them up seems to use basically the same "password correct" command to the drive to start serve up the protected contents. Using and in-line sniffer the universal password was discovered, and could easily be inserted into the data stream and start unraveling all those super secret files, like using a digital bump-key. Many of these affected drives have been granted FIPS 140-2 government security standards certification, whoops. This is a very easy hack, and by "easy" we mean that you'd need to have a degree in electronics and a penchant for reading binary data with a few months to spare to whip up a program. You could always convert to TrueCrypt or some other software based encryption tool. If not, you should check to see if your drive is affected, and whether or not you can return it or patch it. Verbatim and SanDisk both have released software patches that should fix the issue. Since this vulnerability seems to have been incorporated into several manufacturers, more are likely to come to light in the next few weeks. You'd be wise to keep an eye on the feeds to make sure your private drive doesn't show up on the list.
About Everything USB
USB technology is the de facto connectivity standard for PC peripherals & consumer electronics; it has evolved from USB 1.1 to USB 2.0, Wireless USB and USB 3.0. Everything USB takes an in-depth look at these products and other offbeat USB gadgets, and brings you information and reviews needed for you to make a purchase decision. Welcome and enjoy your stay. If you would like to contact us with a tip or comment, please write to: newstips@everythingusb.com
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Filed under Hardware
Thumbdrive Reviews
- Corsair Flash Padlock 2 8GB Secure Flash Drive (2010)
- Corsair Flash Voyager GT 128GB Flash Drive (2009)
- SanDisk Ultra Backup 32GB Flash Drive (2009)
- OCZ Slate USB SSD ExpressCard (2009)
- Kanguru e-Flash eSATA+USB 16GB Flash Drive (2009)
- Kingston Data Traveler 150 32GB USB Flash Drive (2008)
- Corsair Flash Voyager Mini Flash Drive (2008)
- Ironkey 1GB Secure Flash Drive (2007)
- OCZ ATV Turbo 4GB Flash Drive (2007)
- SanDisk Cruzer Contour 4GB Flash Drive (2007)
- Corsair Flash Survivor GT 8GB Flash Drive (2007)
- Corsair Flash Voyager GT 4GB Flash Drive (2007)
- Kingston DataTraveler Secure 4GB Flash Drive (2006)
- SanDisk Cruzer Titanium 2GB Flash Drive (2006)
- Lexar JumpDrive Mercury 1GB Flash Drive (2006)







