With the capacity of USB drives continuously going up and their costs going down, businesses have been thinking about using USB drives as a way for mobile workers to work anywhere. There are considerable amounts of security risks, such as losing confidential data both from losing the drive and from having the data copied to foreign machines unnoticeably. Solutions to reduce or eliminate these risks have been coming into existence, ranging from encrypting the content using software or hardware to a higher grade secure computing environment. For example, one high-end solution just announced by Ironkey and Lockheed, IronClad, uses an Ironkey USB that has a hardware encryption.
Should people who already have a lot of USBs but still have a desire to utilize a high-grade secure working environment run out to get a device like IronClad? Not really. We, at Fortressware, have always had a different way to tackle the security problem of working anywhere – we secure the data wherever it resides and will guard the data from being copied out of the container it has been put in. We have been calling this “leak-proof” container the “Fortress”. With this principle, Fortressware gives you three ways to use any USB drive you have with Fortresses to solve your data protection needs.
If you just want to back-up your data to a USB as an extra storage, you can create a Fortress on the USB and copy all the data you want to back up to the Fortress. If you want to securely transport the data between office and work, you can store all the office work on a Fortress residing on a USB. When you go home, you can work without having to VPN into the office with the confidence that the office work will not be accidentally left on your home PC. If you are a traveler, you can do mobile computing with the environment (the virtual machine plus a Fortress containing your work data) anywhere you are without having to bring your laptop with you. The work you are doing will stay on your USB with the extra assurance that you leave no trace on the guest PC and will not be affected by any malware or viruses residing on the guest PC.
With this kind of flexibility, Fortressware allows you to use different sizes of USBs you have to meet your need at the time. With the ability to run an entire desktop, including the operating system, specific applications and files directly from the USB, Fortressware provides you a 100% available solution to work mobile. Additionally, with the Fortressware Fortress services on the cloud, you can take advantage of a high speed line to sync up sensitive data securely with any data stored in the cloud, or you can exchange data on your USB with someone else who has access to the cloud, for example, colleagues in the office or friends and family at home – all are protected.
