IronKey S200 Ultra-Secure USB Flash Drive [The World's Only FIPS 140-2, Level 3 Certified Flash Drive]

The folks at IronKey are pretty anal when it comes to security and data protection. They have more than one flash drive that claims to be highly secure but it’s their latest creation that has those in the government and enterprise worlds (not to mention all those spies out there) talking around the water coolers. The IronKey S200 is the flash drive for those that simply can’t afford to have their data end up in the wrong hands.

This little baby is the Fort Knox of USB flash drives. It has wicked-ass features like hardware-based AES 256-bit encryption in CBC mode, a tamper-resistant and tamper-evident rugged metal case, hardware-based malware protection, trusted network restrictions (which prevent the device from unlocking on untrusted PCs), and tons of other things that I don’t really understand. Here’s a more detailed listing of the bells and whistles of the IronKey S200:

• Secure management of encryption keys.
• Anti-malware capabilities in hardware provide an unprecedented layer of protection from malware and prevent its spread onto enterprise and government networks.
• AutoRun lock-down protects against worms.
• Read-only mode prevents malware on infected hosts from infecting IronKey devices.
• Trusted network restrictions prevent IronKey devices from unlocking on uncontrolled PCs.
• Optional anti-virus/anti-malware scanning cleans the devices in the background.
• Dual-channel architecture enables significant performance when writing large and small files to the drive.
• Includes extended-life flash memory capable of running high-bandwidth applications such as data backups, virtual machines, or bootable mobile desktops.
• Enterprise Management Cloud Service over the Internet for the enforcement of security policies, security and anti-malware updates, and the tracking and auditing of hundreds or thousands of devices.
• Optional Enterprise Management Server that customers can host themselves.

When it comes to making secure flash drives, the people at IronKey know what they’re doing. The S200 certainly has piqued the interest of high-security firms and government agencies all over the world and it’s only a matter of time before some hacker has his way with it. The S200 isn’t for sale yet and word on the street is that it will be available in a 16GB model. I don’t have pricing info either, so don’t ask. Besides, if I did tell you I’d have to…you know.