Tech Peak of the Week: The IronKey

DATE: 10 Dec 2009

With military grade encryption and secure password storage, the IronKey is a lot more reliable than your average flash drive

By Gabe Perna

After testing out the IronKey, the most world’s most secure flash drive, I began to wish I had more interesting things I could protect. Unfortunately, there’s nothing on my computer here that’s even remotely exciting. It’s littered with a bunch of old stories, pictures and Adobe inDesign files. Where’s a classified photo of the Lochness monster when you need it?

If I did have that exciting classified type information on my computer, that I wanted no one else to see, I’d use the IronKey. With its rugged exterior, the IronKey has the look of something that’s secure. It’s waterproof and tamper resistant frame is nothing to overlook. However, it’s what’s on the inside that really counts with the IronKey.

The IronKey

The device goes way beyond a simple flash drive. It would make even the most determined hacker cry in his sleep. With its Cryptochip, the IronKey can encrypt all the data stored on it with military-grade AES CBC-mode. For those who don’t’ speak the language, this simply means it’d be nearly impossible to hack into your data.

On top of that your IronKey is password protected, when you put it in it prompts you for a password. The best part about this password protection is it shows how much the IronKey is on your side. So say for some reason you lost your IronKey and it got in the wrong hands and after a fruitless attempt to hack the data, the person could try to guess your password. After 10 wrong attempts (and I’ll tell you with mine, it’d take about 1,000,000), the IronKey self destructs.

Don’t worry – it doesn’t explode. It’s an internal self destruct. It’ll also self destruct if it detects a physical attack. Like I said, this thing is on your side.

(Take a look at other worthwhile storage devices in our Holiday Gift Guide)

Once you get into the IronKey, it doesn’t stop with simply providing a safe haven for your most classified documents and files. It comes with a secure version of Firefox which protects surfing privacy. The Identity Manager (see below) stores your passwords and guards you against theft. I used it for Twitter, but if you’re a frequent online shopper, this would be a great tool to use to protect your credit card data.

In addition, the IronKey can protect itself against malware with its self run antivirus software. It allows you to open in Read Only mode if you don’t trust the host. Lastly, the IronKey allows you to create a back up for your data in case you lose it. It’ll then allow you to restore your encrypted data to a new IronKey.

In an age where identity theft has become a growing concern, a device like the IronKey can be a life saver. The device runs as low as $60 online and as high as $150. However, securing your data is not something you can truly put a price on.Even if you’re like me and don’t have anything to really secure.