Kingston DataTraveler 5000 USB Drive

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Last month, memory giant Kingston was rocked by a mini-controversy where a security flaw was found in their “secure” flash drives. They’ve redeemed themselves by introducing a new secure drive, the DataTraveler 5000, which corrects the flaw but also has AES hardware-based encryption as well as a XTS cypher encryption standard.

The DataTraveler 5000 meets FIPS 140-2 level 2 certification for transportation of classified materials and level 3 certification is pending. It goes the extra mile with a 256-bit AES hardware-based encryption scheme. They’ve also included the XTS cipher ECC algorithms that meets Suite B standards required by the US Department of Defense.

This is being marketed as a device for government agencies, and it’s pretty hardcore. After 10 “intrusion attempts” (which we hope isn’t just a mistyped password), the the drive locks down and destroys the encryption key. The case of the thumb drive is a sealed titanium-coated steel body that’s tamper-proof and waterproof.

The transfer speeds are nothing exciting (11MB/sec read, 5MB/sec write), but security, not speed, is the appeal of these drives. Unfortunately, the data encryption software is only compatible with Windows XP and newer – which is disappointing for Mac fans but probably won’t be a problem in the government enterprise market.

It’s being offered in four sizes, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB and 16GB. Pricing starts at $111 for the 2GB and goes up to $400 for the 16GB model. Those prices aren’t too shabby for the level of security you’re getting from them.