Security of Flash Thumb Drives and PDA’s
USB thumb drives and email enabled PDAs have become an extremely useful tool for keeping up with important data and transferring it between computers. However they can become a liability if they are lost, stolen, or damaged if you don’t take steps to protect yourself.
Users wishing to maintain Institutional Data on thumb drives or PDAs should read the UK Information Systems Use Policy, in order to insure compliance with University Policy regarding the use and transportation of this data. Of particular importance are sections 4, which defines Institutional Data, and section 8 which stipulates the protection requirements for such data.
To increase your chances of recovering a lost device you should carefully check the owner’s manual to setup any Owner information in the device. If the device doesn’t contain any such mechanism you may wish to create a simple text file in the main folder called “Return to Owner Information”. The file name could be longer if desired, but many operating systems shorten long files name unless the user has selected that file, so you should start the file name with a word that quickly identifies the content. In this file you should include your current contact information and how the user could return the device to you.
If the device supports it you may wish to enable its encryption or locking features to protect sensitive data on the device, but be forewarned: if you forget your encryption key you will be unable to recover the data. For devices that don’t directly support encryption you may be able to purchase software from a vendor that can provide these services. Encrypting or locking the device will also require that you decrypt or unlock it before you will be able to access the contents, so this may require that you run special software on the machine you are attempting to access the data from.
In order to protect yourself from losing important data you should make regular backups of any critical data on the device by copying that data to a computer’s hard drive or CD-Rom backup.