Secure a Pen or Jump Drive with USB Secure

There are dozens of pen drives are available in the market varying in their shapes, colors and sizes so that you can choose what you opt for. Although buying a good pen drive could be a difficult task and as a user you ought to be familiar with a lot of things.

Some Tips on How to Buy a Good Pen Drive:

Following I am going to write down few buying tips which will help you out in buying a good pen drive.

• Figure Out Your Requirements
• Go for the Drive having High Storage Capacity
• Read the Reviews
• Visit Blogs and Forums
• Security of Pen Drive

Figure Out Your Requirements:

Before buying a pen drive, you must know your needs. This is the first and the foremost step which actually allows you to decide which pen drive you should buy. First you should know what will you use this pen drive for? Let’s say if you are aimed at using your pen drive simply for the purpose of transferring files from your workspace to your home on a regular basis, a 512 MB pen drive would be perfect choice for you.

Since pen drives are available in different storage capacities, you can choose one depending on the amount of data that you want to save in it. The storage capacity of a pen drive can be as small as 32MB to as full-size as 10GB.

Go for the Drive having High Storage Capacity

Since pen drives which have high storage capacity would not cost you extra money, you can go for the one which has huge storage capacity. Such pen drives can come very handy when you have to back up a huge amount of data from your computer just in case if you want to format your computer. However if you just want to store some audio files, video files and other data, you can use pen drive with 1 or 2 GB storage capacity.

Read the Reviews

By reading reviews about different pen drives on different websites, you would get the best idea on the various features of different pen drives, their performance and prices as well. This is by far the best way to get maximum information on various pen drives.

Visit Blogs and Forums

Another useful way to gather information on pen drive is to visit the relevant blogs and forum. Majority of users who are interested in knowing more about the gadgets and devices visit various tech blogs and forum regularly.

Security of Pen Drive

Password protection is the best way to secure your newly bought pen drive. Now you can password protect all your files and folders in your pen drives with USB Secure to ensure complete safety and security of your data.

Password Protect Pen Drive

In the past, floppy disks have been used to store and transfer data from one place to another. Didn’t remember the days when you had to depend on floppy disks and CDs for storing and transferring data from one computer to another? How much nuisance had it been using a floppy disk as you would had been totally gone astray if you just left over one of those disks which hold some vital information in it.

Using a floppy disk was not only inconvenient but it is also limited to the PCs having a floppy disk or CD driver in it. Furthermore, the process of burning data into the CDs or copying all your files to your floppy disks was a bane of your existence and was a time consuming process as well. Apart from all these disadvantages, if you were required to store large amount of data, you had to use multiple floppy disks as they have very little storage capacity.

Some of the Advantages of Using USB Pen Drive:

Here, I am going to list down some key advantages of using pen drives:

• Pen drives or USB pen drives are dust-free so you don`t have to worry about cleaning them from time to time.
• They are shock-free which means that you are free from the fear of getting shock.
• Pen drives or jump drive are small in size and weigh too less as compared to the other storage devices.
• The speed of transferring data from your PC to pen drive is quite fast; therefore pen drives are the efficient choice to be used at work.
• They come with huge storage capacity so that you can store a lot of files in them.
• Pen drive is a good choice to keep a safe backup of your important files.
• They are available in different shapes so that you can get what you desire for.
• They are available at very affordable price.

Keep the Data in Your Pen Drive Secured from Theft or Lost

Na matter what you have saved in your pen or jump drive, you must protect it so that it won’t be misused particularly if the data is of sensitive nature. For example; if you have saved your business data in your pen drive like source code, ongoing work project and passwords, you want to be sure that this information will not fall in wrong hands and will be protected from all the incidence of data lost and theft.

USB Secure is the solution of all your worries. It is an easy to use software that can quickly password protect your pen drive and all the data that it contain.

Securing Your Thumb Drive with USB Secure

No matter what you have stored in your thumb drive, it needs to be protected. Whether it is your personal stuff like your family photographs, videos, songs or your business data like detail of financial transaction, source code, company’s new creative ideas, details of your ongoing project; you must protect it against lost or theft if you have kept it in your thumb drive.

Since it is nearly impossible to prevent your thumb drive from getting lost or stolen because of its small size, the only possible saving grace would be password protecting thumb drive with an industry reliable and trustworthy data security software so that even if you lose your drive or if it gets stolen, at least you will be sure that the information or the data in it is safe and will not fall in wrong hands.

A password protected thumb drive will always ask for the correct password before letting anyone access the information. If a correct password is entered, access to the stored information will be granted however an incorrect password means access would be denied hence keeping your data safe.

Password protecting your thumb drives or your USB flash drives has taken the shape of a necessity in today’s technology shrewd world. According to a recent report it has been estimated that approximately 70% of privacy breaches are due to lost or stolen of USB drives. Such statistics highlight the importance of password protecting your thumb drive or USB drive.

You can very easily password protect your thumb drive with the help of some software which are readily available in the market. There are tons of locking software which you can choose according to your own need, convenience and budget. I would personally prefer using USB Secure which cannot only password protect my thumb drive but nearly all other such types of portable devices like USB drive, memory stick, pen drive, jump drive, flash drive and external hard drive.

Furthermore it is very easy to install and use software and allows me to password protect my thumb drive just after plugging it to my PC. Simply install the application on your drive which you want to protect, set and confirm a password and voila! You’re done!

Once you installed USB Secure on your thumb drive and set your password, your data will be instantly protected with the password that you set. However, you can reset the password whenever you feel like for security reasons.

By simply installing USB Secure in your USB flash drive or thumb drive, you can prevent unauthorized users from having access to your sensitive data.

USB Secure

According to a report, approximately 1.3 million dollars have been lost every year for every security breach through lost or stolen USB flash drives. This is because of the fact that stolen or lost USB flash drives can be used to make identity theft possible and if the data of such drives is of sensitive nature then they can also be sold to the competitors. This mean embarrassment or catastrophe depending on the nature of data stored in lost or stolen USB drive.

If you still think that you don’t need to secure your USB flash drives, just think: how much confidential records you can save in your 16GB flash drive? And how much it would cost you in terms of your company’s reputation, sales and clients if that information fell into the wrong hands?

USB flash drives have completely emaciated the use of floppy drives and CDs which were once used for the purpose of storing information because of their small sizes, huge storage capacity, availability in different sizes and shapes and ease of use.  This is the reason why more and more people are switching towards USB flash drives from the old means of data transportation. Even there are portable flash memory cards available in the market which you can plug into your computer’s USB port and it will function as a portable hard drive.

You can use USB security software to secure your flash drives, memory cards and all other such devices. There are many software available on the internet – both free and paid. So you must first figure out your criteria and requirement before you choose a USB security software.

A good USB security software is considered to be the one which is fast, easy to use, has strong password locking protection and can be used with other external portable media like thumb drives, memory sticks, memory cards, pen drives, jump drives and external hard drive. Just in case if you are looking for some additional features in your USB password protecting software, all you have to do is spend a little more and find out exactly what you want.

The latest and so far the most trusted invention in the field of USB Security is USB Secure which comes with a strong password locking protection along with many other additional features. The first and the foremost quality of the software is its multiple layers of protection that ensures complete security of your password protected data on any portable medium.

Another useful feature of the software is its PC independent protection which is particularly valuable for those who travel a lot and use multiple computers for work. USB Secure software allows you enjoy your preferences, favorites, songs, email and other stuff on any computer. All you have to do is enter correct password and get a move on!

Protect your USB Drive with USB Secure

Although USB flash drives are very useful but apart from their usefulness their small size makes them easy to mislay. How would you protect your flash drive depends on how do you want to protect it i.e. what type of protection you want for your USB drive and how much of the drives contents you need to protect.

Let us suppose if you want to protect your USB drive along with all the data that it contains instantly, and do not want complicated procedure. The wise option is to choose an easy to use software which can password protect your USB flash drive in run time. You should not go for encryption process as it is the most complicated and the time taking process. This is the answer of how do you want to protect your USB flash drive.

Now the second question how much content of USB drive you want to protect? Let us say that you only want to secure some of your files on your flash drive then the simplest way is to save them with a password. There are many free program available in the market which you can use to do this such as zipping tools and programs like Microsoft Word and Excel.

Using the above method, although protect your files with a password but is not secure enough to be used particularly if you have sensitive data on your drive. But if you only save some photos of beautiful looking scenery from your recent holidays which probably don’t need to be stored securely, you can go for this option.

However if you need to save your company’s data, office documents and new business plans in your UBS flash drive then it makes sense to password protect your drive completely. After all, you would not want other people to be able to get hold of your company’s data if your drive gets lost, would you?

If you do not mind protecting your USB flash drive as soon as you plug it into your PC or laptop and having an option to access your protected data from any computer just after entering your correct password and without requiring any administrative rights, you can check out the shareware program USB Secure.

I have researched the market and found out many other USB security programs, some of them were freeware while some were not. But the thing that I opt for USB Secure is that I did not find any security loophole in this software which I found in many other software.

Some of the features of USB Secure which you may want to check are listed below:

• Strong password protection for all portable media
• No administrator rights required
• Full plug and play supported
• Automatically runs when the device is plugged in
• Data in secured USB drive is delete proof
• Data remain protected even if your USB drive is stolen or lost
• Password is required to unprotect data
• Password is required to delete or edit data in your protected USB flash drives
• Easy to use with a user-friendly interface

Security of USB Flash Drives

Despite the fact that I was looking for a very simple, easy to use and non complicated application that would offer me maximum protection for my data and at the same time offers me hardware independent protection so that I can carry it out anywhere I want and can access my data from any computer; while other features such as on-the-fly encryption of the data, shredding, virtual keyboard, hack attempt monitoring and the security of encrypted or locked files were not on my agenda because for that purpose I am already using Folder Lock software.

So I start searching on Google using words like secure USB, password protect USB drive and how to password protect USB drive so that I would have a list of USB security software so that I can compare and choose the best one. When I was searching, I landed on a site from where I downloaded a unique tool named USB secure. The first thing that caught my attention was the name of the application. It instantly gave me the idea that this application is being designed especially for securing USB drives. So I downloaded its evaluation copy so as to check the functionality and the level of security it offers.

I installed it on my USB drive and start using it to see how it protects my drive. As soon as I installed it on my drive, it prompted for two options either I want to open this drive or want to protect it. After selecting the protection option, it asked me to set and confirm a password. I thought I would have to go through a complicated procedure but right after setting the password, all the data in my USB drive was password protected instantly. I was so amazed to see that I actually found a software which is not only easy to use but also password protect my files as soon as I plug in my drive to PC. One more thing that I came to know was that USB Secure offers hardware independent protection which means you can access your protected data from any computer without requiring any administrative rights. All you need to have is your correct password.

USB Secure lets you to password protect USB drives and all other portable media such as memory stick, thumb drive, pen drive, jump drive and external hard drive so that nobody can gain access to your files which you have stored in your flash drive. Even if you have lost your drive or it gets stolen, your protected files will remain secure and safe from all the dangers if you have used USB Secure for protecting them.

Secure USB Drive with USB Secure

Here I have listed down top 5 hidden security risks associated with the use of standard unsecure USB flash drives followed by the available USB security solution.

1) Data Recovery is very Easy even if you Quick Format your Drive

When it comes to USB flash drives, delete does not mean what you think. When you delete a file from your UBS drive either using ‘Delete’ option or by performing ‘Quick Format’, it does not actually delete the file rather just place a sheet of white paper over the sensitive documents. This is what we call the FAT recovery issue. Your “deleted” file is still there and can be recovered using FAT data recovery tool.

2) Misplaced Flash Drive – A Huge Security Threat

Misplacing a USB flash drive for any amount of time is a real risk. Whenever your USB flash drive is misplaced or left behind, your data can be tampered with and can even be copied of. This is because you would never know what had happened to your flash drive when you were off ground.

3) Cheap Flash Drives can put your Data at Risk

If you use a cheap USB flash drive, there is fairly enough chances that the flash component part of your USB drive would fade away at an alarming speed. Cheap flash drives are equipped with bad quality switches which can be broken off even after one use. This indicates that files stored are not protected against data loss and losing files this way can be very frustrating and annoying.

4) Unsecure Flash Drives can set a Terrible Catastrophe

Unprotected flash drives can set a terrible computer catastrophe as it can be loaded with viruses and malware which can infect your operating system. An affected flash drive carries malicious coding or configuration which can critically spoil any computer you plug your drive into.

5) Standard USB Drives have NO Built-in Security Feature

There is no standard flash drive that comes with built-in password protection or encryption for the data stored.  This would be critical if you have stored your work related data in your USB drive as just in case if you misplace that drives, it can cause a security breach which would bring your business in jeopardy.

The Available USB Security Solution You can Use to Protect your Flash Drive

USB Secure

The easiest and undoubtedly the most cost-efficient solution till date is to use a high quality USB security software such as USB Secure which provides you a very unparalleled feature of Auto-play with which you can secure your USB drive as soon as you plug it into your computer. It endows you with an easy way to password protect USB drive as well as all other storage devices like pen drives, thumb drives, jump drives, memory cards and external hard drives.

USB Flash Drives - A Potent Risk Factor

USB flash drives are smaller than a pack of chewing gum and weigh around 15g. Since they are small enough, they can be very easily carried out in a pocket, in hand bag, and thus can also be lost on the bus stop or at airport.

They have huge storage capacity. A 16 GB flash drive can potentially store up to 2, 80,000 MS Word documents which means your entire company’s data can be saved in a small flash drive.

USB flash drives pose two huge security risks in the corporate workplace which are intellectual property theft and client data loss. These are the major security threats which can put your company at risk and can jeopardize your company’s reputation as anyone with bad intentions can plug in his flash drive and start downloading information from your computer; even your trusted employees can also expose your company to risk by simply losing a device loaded with sensitive information.

Many organizations have tried to overcome this problem by implementing a privacy policy which bans the use of all personal USB flash drives in the workspace. If an employee needs a flash drive, he will be provided with a company-owned USB drive, with the serial number recorded against the employee’s name. In the same way certain rules can also be enforced such as which type of data a user is permitted to store in his device, the movement of the device outside the office premises, and the employee’s responsibility regarding security of the device.

Now the question is how you can protect yourself from these security threats? As far as intellectual property theft due to unauthorized use of USB flash drive is concerned, computer forensic investigation can play an important role in pinpointing the unauthorized use of USB flash drive. This is because of the reason that computer forensic analysis can bring out the traces which are left by the devices on the computer’s registry such as the unique serial number of the device, and when it was connected to the computer.

Furthermore, there are some software available in the market like USB Block which can be used to monitor and control the unauthorized use of USB flash drive, making it easier for organizations to prevent data leak due to unauthorized use of such devices. But what if you have lost your USB drive loaded with extremely sensitive information. You cannot prevent the lost or theft of USB devices but you can surely protect the data that they contain so that if somehow they get lost or stolen, you will know that your data is still protected and secure. For this purpose, you can use USB Secure which is a USB security software. You can use this tool to password protect USB flash drives and the data that they contain.

Folder Lock - File Encryption Software

With an encryption software, you can encrypt your files, folders, can also send encrypted files through the email or by the mean of USB drive, CD and DVD. This makes your encrypted data portable yet completely protected so that you can easily send or backup your encrypted files without any fear of data lost.

Encrypt Your Files and Folders

There are a lot of encryption software out there which will help you encrypting your files, but Folder Lock software is good and a good place to start with because it has the added benefits of both being a locking and encryption shareware product i.e.; you can test the application before paying for it – additional benefit. There are many other software available in the market which claim to encrypt your data.

Will access to my files be stopped if I use encryption Software?

Encryption software works by converting your information from a readable format into an unreadable format which can be converted back to readable format only with the correct password only. This makes it difficult for unauthorized users (who do not have your correct password) to gain access to your sensitive information which you have saved in encrypted lockers such as passwords and source code.

The first and foremost thing you must know about the encryption software is the encryption algorithm which is being used to encrypt your valuable data. Encryption algorithm can be simple and more complex and it determines how securely you have encrypted your files. Let me put in simple words; if you encrypt your files using 64-bit encryption algorithm, your encrypted files would be easy to decipher or crack as compare to files which are encrypted using more complex encryption algorithm. The rule of thumb is the more complex the encryption algorithm an encryption software is using, the more complex or difficult it would be for hackers to break it.

Why should I encrypt my files?

The answer is very obvious but somewhat it depends on what you have stored in your computer or laptop. For example; if you have financial records with important information such as your credit card numbers, back account numbers, passwords, email addresses, etc; then you have bring yourself into an extremely vulnerable environment if you have not protected your files.

Majority of corporate sector’s employees have admitted the pervasive incidences of data theft, identity theft and privacy breaches just because of the unprotected computers and networks.

How do I encrypt my files?

You can encrypt your files, pictures, movies, documents, family photos, videos, financial information, passwords, personal letters and other information which you think would be inappropriate for your kids, friends or co-workers with the help of a file encryption software.

There are certain encryption software e.g. Folder Lock, which are designed by keeping both the causal PC users and the IT professionals in mind which means that these software are suitable for both.

Folder Lock uses 256-bit AES on-the-fly encryption and also offers you Windows Kernel Level locking mechanism so that you can protect your files, pictures, movies, songs and private files of any type. Although locking mechanism is fast but do not consider it as an alternative for encryption.

Folder Lock - Data Encryption Software

Identity theft has turn out to be a serious crime as it takes years for the victim of identity theft to recover from the loss. Sometimes, it gets so much severe that the victim of identity theft could get credit card or loan and ended up with losing his job. More than nine million American citizens are affected yearly by identity theft.

You can prevent this happening to you by protecting your important and confidential information with data encryption software. There is an added advantage of using an encryption software that you can also prevent hackers and crackers from accessing your valuable data.

Internet has modernized the way we carry out our business, look for a job and connect to our dear ones. The only drawback of using internet is that it has created a new form of crime which is called cybercrime. Don’t let yourself become a victim of cybercrime. Protect your privacy and the confidentiality of your sensitive data with data encryption software.

When you install encryption software on your computer or laptop, make sure that your data encryption software offer PC independent password protection so that you can also protect your USB flash drives and CDs or DVDs. This feature would be ideal for those who are always on the go.

Imagine you can carry your encrypted files in your USB drive while you are travelling. How easy and secure it would be for you, you can keep all your important files with you on the go.

Whether you are concerned about your privacy, data theft, data loss, data leaks or virus attacks, encryption software is the only solution for you. With an encryption software, you cannot only encrypt your files and folders on the hard drive of your computer, but you can also keep them secure in any portable storage media and can also keep a safe online backup either in your email, MySpace or even on your own web server.

Folder Lock is an encryption software which does not offer PC independent security for your files but also offers you an easy way to lock own your files on your computer. It means it offers you two different ways to protect your files; encryption and locking so that you can choose which method is more suitable and convenient for you. You can download Folder Lock from the internet, just Google folder lock and you will come to know from where you can get the software. Furthermore, it also offers you a trial version which you can use to test the functionality of the product.