Kingston Digital Europe, an affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, the independent world leader in memory products, has released its new DataTraveler 5000 USB Flash drive.

The Kingston DataTraveler 5000 is FIPS 140-2 Level 2 certified with Level 3 pending, and features 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption. It uses XTS cipher mode and also uses elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) algorithms to meet Suite B standards approved by the US government.

“The Kingston DataTraveler 5000 delivers unsurpassed levels of security and encryption to government and enterprise customers,” said Steve Hall, Emea product development manager - Flash, Kingston Digital Europe.

“This portable data solution represents state-of-the-art data protection while providing end users with the simplicity of plug and play.”

The Kingston DataTraveler 5000 utilises patented Secured by Spyrus technology which supports hardware-based 256-bit AES-XTS and Suite B cryptography, including ECC. Suite B algorithms were specifically selected and approved by the US government and the Department of Defense for use in multinational data sharing environments including both classified and unclassified applications. XTS-AES mode is a cipher mode for encryption that is much stronger than CBC, ECB and other modes.

Spyrus is the leader in the development of advanced hardware-based encryption, authentication and digital content security products.

FIPS 140-2 certification requires a validation process that meets federal requirements set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). This is critical because many governmental agencies in the United States mandate that sensitive “data at rest” (ie, all information not in the network) must be encrypted with the FIPS 140-2 standard. Level 2 means the Kingston DataTraveler 5000 has a tamper-evident construction which acts to notify any users if their drive has been tampered with.

It also has a power-on self test that verifies the encryption mechanism is running properly each time the drive is plugged into a USB port. The drive is scheduled to receive a FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certificate soon.

The Kingston DataTraveler 5000 is available in 2-, 4-, 8- and 16GB capacities. It will also be available with an onboard Malware scanning application via Kingston’s extensive customisation program.-TradeArabia News Service