Hiddn Crypto: The Easiest Way To Thumb Drive Security

We haven't talked a lot about crypto here- it happens to be a passion of a few of our writers and editor, but most products appeal to a pretty specific audience and are often too technical for general use. My mother can barely use thumb drives without a problem- and wouldn't really care if her documents or photos were somehow retrieved and looked at by another party. But plenty of people do care- governments and their agents, of course, but also any business where knowledge is power. That covers plenty of businesses, so if keeping your data secure is a priority, cryptography should be as well. Even for personal use, your photos and documents might not be appropriate for public display or use.

Broadly speaking, data storage is dangerous. Most systems are only as safe as the hard drives, and the larger the drives are, the more difficult and time-consuming it is to encrpyt them via software. Processing power can only do so much, which is why most systems today are unencrypted, but locked or secured physically. Hardware crypto solutions for your normal drives are available, but sometimes impractical, and installation and maintenance can be difficult. The primary hard drive in your computer- where your operating system is stored- is now just one place you might store data though, and often unavailable for casual access. Many, many people are now using USB thumb drives to keep their files on, as they can then have them on-hand at all times. And the movement of potentially valuable, incriminating, or just plain personal data to a mass storage medium that is prone to loss has led to plenty of security breaches.

This is where a whole string of encrypted USB drives have sprung up to fill the gap, offering biometric solutions or simple password-protection or PIN-based combinations. They work alright, but don't scale well- an office cannot easily manage these drives, as some require a specific person and will not work if that person is, say, fired. Others are slow, bulky, cumbersome, or require special software. Today, we're looking at the hiddn Crypto Adapter SOHO, a small box the size of a cellphone that features a nifty set of security features, and ensures that your data is protected easily using the AES 256-bit algorithm.

The Crypto Adapter uses a smartcard and a pin approach, requiring both for the physical media to be unlocked. And it is relatively media-agnostic, meaning that you can plug in most any USB or thumb drive, or even external hard drives, and have them immediately and transparently encrypted. There are a couple of important caveats, though. For starters, we had some trouble getting camera memory card readers to function through the device- every USB and thumb drive that we tested worked like a charm though. Because of the way it works, it is operating system independent- but will require you to format your media before use. To be clear, upon first use of any thumb drive plugged into the hiddn, we had to format the disk, erasing the contents. If you're dealing with a disk already filled with data, you'll have to copy it off first, a potential security risk- you cannot simply encrypt already-existing files with this device.

The Crpyto Adapter plugs into your computer via any regular USB cable, with no extra power required- quite nice. Some drives may require extra, but we didn't run across any. You pop in your smartcard, of which two are included, and then press in your PIN. Three wrong tries lock the device though and require special attention, so beware. The hiddn then serves as a passthrough, automatically encrypting anything you put onto the drive, and decrypting files you take off. There are no other passwords or keys needed, and it stays ready until your computer goes to sleep or shuts off, or the card/cord/USB drive are removed. We tested the process thoroughly, formatting a drive after plugging it into the Crypto, then throwing some files on. Unplugging it and then trying it on another machine, the drive showed up as empty/RAW, and the computer requested that we format it. Using some analysis tools, we tried to scrape at the partition, finding no data to be accessible.

No keys are stored on the drive itself either, nor is there any obvious information as to the source of the drive or encryption tool. Other configurations are available- ours offered two cards that, if both were lost, would have presented a problem- data from drives would have been inaccessible. New cards can be ordered, and the device re-programmed, but it's a bit of a hassle. We also tested the thumb drive both with and without the Crypto Adapter, but making sure to use the same bus- we ran speed tests on an older machine, using USB 1.1, and found that using the adapter can definitely affect the read speed- up to 35% over repeated trials, though less in a USB 2.0 situation.

A transparent, easy-to-use solution that can turn any USB thumb drive into a truly secure data storage locker sounds great- and it is. But, as with all things, there is a price- an extra tool to lug around and worry about if you want to have access to your files. Another PIN to remember and a card to carry around, as well as a small hit to transfer speed and data rate (noticeable especially for larger files, as you can see from our graphs). It isn't quite simple enough for Mom, without some setup in advance, but would be easy even for the non-technical to get working within minutes. The hiddn Crpyto Adapter is also fairly expensive- around $850 for the SOHO edition. We loved the ease, the low cost over time, and the flexibility- for anyone in need of a dead-simple, super-secure, the hiddn Crypto Adapter can save your business.