Page 10 - Security Today, October 2019

“BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device, is a key threat to even the most robust cybersecurity plan that a small busi- ness could put in place.”
States, as with many laws enacted in the state, the law will affect any business that has customers who are based in California— which describes many companies around the world.
CCPA can apply to businesses even if they do not have offices or employees in California. The criteria to determine if this law will affect your business are (any one of the three make the law apply to your business):
• Do you have gross revenue over $25 million, or
• Do you possess the personal information of 50,000 or more
consumers, households or devices, or
• Do you earn more than half your annual revenue from selling
consumers’ personal information?
If the new CCPA applies to your company, the intentions
of the law are to provide California residents (defined broadly enough to cover consumers, employees, business contacts and others) with the ability to know what personal data is collected about them (and have access to this information); how that data is used, sold or disclosed; ability to say no to the sale of personal data; request their data to be deleted, and more.
Do Employees Bring Their Own Storage Devices For Back Up and Transfer? BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device, is a key threat to even the most robust cybersecurity plan that a small business could put in place. The tremendous portability and exceptional ease of USB drives have proven to increase productivity to millions of busi- nesses and government agencies. However, since most of these drives are unencrypted, they can pose a major security risk to the user storing anything more valuable than public data.
Their extreme portability means they are very susceptible to being lost, accessed or misappropriated. When that happens, there is a fairly good chance that data stored on the device will end up in the wrong hands, risking the user’s or company’s pri- vacy and security.
Having a company policy of standardizing on the use of hard- ware-based encrypted USB drives is a key factor in a USB drive’s ability to provide the safest, most trustworthy means to store and transfer personal, classified, sensitive data. Experts say the use of an encrypted USB flash drive is the best solution for keeping con- fidential information what it was intended to be—confidential.
From a cost perspective, hardware-based encrypted USBs are not much more expensive than non-encrypted devices—and they are like insurance against the unthinkable—the loss and breach of private data that could be exposed otherwise.
The use of encrypted USB drives can also provide legal pro- tection with regulations such as HIPPA, CCPA, GDPR and oth- er regulations that affect many industries and professions.
What is The Difference Between Hardware and Software Encryption?
Not only is encryption vital in USB drives securing and protect- ing data, how that encryption is performed is likewise important. Users have two choices: hardware and software-based encryption.
USB drive encryption can be done through either the device’s hardware or software. A hardware-centric/software-free encryp- tion approach to data security is the best defense against data loss, as it eliminates the most commonly used attack routes. This software-free method also provides comprehensive compatibility with most OS or embedded equipment possessing a USB port.
Hardware-based encrypted USB drives are self-contained, don’t require a software element on the host computer, and are the most effective means in combating ever-evolving cyber threats. Hardware-encrypted USB drives protect against the pos- sibility of brute force, sniffing and memory hash attacks due to their security being self-contained inside the drive.
Software-based encrypted drives are designed differently. They share a computer’s resources with other programs. The en- cryption is not done on the USB drive at all. A software program on the computer encrypts the data, then stores it on the USB drive. To read it back, a software program must be run on the computer to decrypt the data. Because of this computer-based encryption process, the USB drives themselves are vulnerable. In some cases, there are compatibility issues with older operating systems that may make the data unreadable.
How Can I Protect My Company’s Sensi- tive Data and Not Hinder Productivity?
There should be standardization for best practices for what is known as data “at-rest” or “in-transit.” While the most com- mon storage medium is the use of inexpensive USB drives, the best practice is to standardize on hardware-based encrypted USB drives. This practice will provide efficiency and security to mo- bile data for anyone. Even accessing Cloud storage can be risky – while you access the internet at a coffee shop, someone else may be trying to hack your system. If you carry your data on a hard- ware-encrypted drive, you can work on your data and keep your internet turned off while in an untrusted open Wi-Fi area.
So, where do you start? As a small or medium business, you more than likely aren’t going to need the same level of protection that large companies and government agencies require. There is a range of easy-to-use, cost-effective, encrypted USB flash-drive solutions to choose from that can go a long way toward mitigat- ing your privacy and security risks, and, quite possibly, save you money and stress.
Encrypted USB drive manufacturers provide you with op- tions, no matter your needs. For SMBs, Kingston’s DataTraveler Vault Privacy 3.0 USB Flash drive provides affordable business- grade security. The encrypted solution features 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption in XTS mode (this is state-of-the art encryption). It protects 100-percent of data stored and enforces complex password protocol with minimum characteristics to pre- vent unauthorized access. For additional peace of mind, the drive locks down after 10-incorrect password attempts. It also features a read-only access mode to avoid potential malware risks
Data security and consumer privacy are not only concerns for large businesses. SMBs are facing the same is-
sues with smaller budgets, so identifying cost
effective ways to mitigate the risk is paramount
as we prepare for 2020.
Richard Kanadjian is the business manager of Kingston Technology’s Encrypted USB unit.
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