Portable drive gets PIN security touchscreen

PIN-cushioned.

By John E. Dunn, Techworld
Published: 15:39 GMT, 01 February 08

A Japanese company has taken a leaf from bank ATM security by launching a portable hard drive that comes with its own built-in PIN keypad.

The USB-based EZSecu EZ850 is an enclosure based around a normal 2.5 inch SATA drive of the type familiar to any laptop user, but up close it looks more like portable safe than a hard disk. One side of the unit is dominated by a touchscreen, on which users have to enter a PIN code of up to six characters from a keypad of nine digits plus zero.

Connect the drive to a PC without entering the PIN code, and it won’t be recognised.

It is not known if its Japanese distributors – the company has the rather offputting name - "Digital Cowboy" – will make the EZ850 available outside Japan, though the westernised branding name suggests that they might. The drive is reported to cost £70 ($140), and is nearly identical to a drive from Korean company IOTEK that appeared last November, without apparently going on sale.

It is also unclear whether the drive security could be bypassed by removing the drive from the enclosure and simply reading it through a system with no PIN interface. It is likely that it uses some form of encryption to make the drive unreadabale when removed from the enclosure.

Storage vendors have started coming up with a variety of ways to secure portable storage, ranging from built-in data encryption to PIN entry on USB flash drives. Fingerprint readers have also been used.

The advantages of PINs are their simplicity, and the fact that the drive carries everything around needed to secure it with no need for additional software. Others will argue that full-drive encryption with software access is probably just as practical for business users.

What are your views on this subject? Use the form below to post a comment on this article up to 500 characters.

Characters remaining: 500

Related Security news

Hacker attacks on US military jump sharply in 2009

China source of most attacks, says report

21 November 2009

Microsoft denies building security 'backdoor' in Windows 7

Privacy organisations shouldn't read too much into NSA involvement it says

Pentagon expands exclusive deal with McAfee

Department of Defense uses McAfee products

Police arrest pair over global banking web scam

Man and woman arrested in Manchester for using notorious Zeus Trojan

Related Security reviews

Lumension application control review

Bit9 Parity Suite

BitDefender Total Security 2008

Email this article to a friend or colleague:

PLEASE NOTE: Your name is used only to let the recipient know who sent the story, and in case of transmission error. Both your name and the recipient's name and address will not be used for any other purpose.

Techworld White Papers

Database security: Preventing enterprise data leaks at the source

IDC discusses the growing internal threats to business information, the impact of government regulations on the protection of data, and how enterprises must adopt database security best practices...

Download Whitepaper

Service-oriented security

SOA has become an integral part of enterprise software by providing a framework to efficiently develop software as services that is easily sharable, reusable, and integrated. No where is the need more apparent than in the Identity Management space. Welcome to the age of Service-Oriented Security (SOS).

Download Whitepaper

Data protection prospective vendor checklist

Organisations need a way to map business needs against all these challenges in procuring a technical solution. To help, SANS has developed the following Prospective Vendor Checklist.

Download Whitepaper

Unlock the power of the mainframe

This whitepaper presents the notion of CICS as an integration hub based on a component-based, service-oriented architecture supporting Web services. Highlights will review the challenges and contrasted support for Web services natively in CICS.

Download Whitepaper

Techworld UK - Technology - Business

COLT White Paper

Are all VoIP services the same?

Questions to ask your service provider to ensure you get the VoIP service you need
With careful choice of partner, your business can have all the advantages of VoIP access - reduced costs, flexibility and simplicity - without the drawbacks.
This white paper is your guide to ensure you get right the VoIP service and details the pitfalls which businesses would do well to avoid.

Download white paper
BMC

Ride the express lane in the journey to speed ITIL adoption

Explore the challenges in making the journey to ITIL and the criteria for selecting consulting services
By following ITIL practices, your IT organisation will become more closely integrated with the business. We recommend making the journey to ITIL in a sequence of six incremental steps, the phases of which are driven through execution of a strategic transformational roadmap.

Download white paper

Webcast: IT Financial Management: Cost Optimisation for Efficiency and Agility.
On Demand Webcast
Join this webcast to learn about the techniques and technologies that can help you prove the value of IT to the business by understanding the true cost of today's IT services and those that will be necessary to deliver future success.

Register Today

Site Map

IDG Network

* *