MIPT created a flash drive with new generation protection

Developed by employees of the MIPT Department of Information Security, the flash card is equipped with an authentication unit, with the help of which the device recognizes not only legal users, but also the range of computers on which it can be used. The portable media is also equipped with an automatic data masking system, which makes it impossible to read it directly from the chip.

According to one of the developers, Head of the Department of Information Security at MIPT Valery Konyavsky, Only the user and administrator have legal access to information stored on a secure flash drive. At the same time, the user can set and edit the list of “allowed” computers and perform other actions related to granting access. The administrator's media usage scenario involves reading and writing data only.

“The initial installation of the “user” and “administrator” statuses occurs using special software that is launched directly from the flash drive. The software is stored in the device’s memory and cannot be deleted or overwritten. The software part has two special consoles – for the administrator and for the user. Here the question arises: how many administrators and users can a flash drive have? One administrator and one user. When using the device personally, one person can combine these two roles; for corporate use, it is better to separate these statuses,” — Valery Konyavsky, head of the information security department at MIPT, clarifies.

Flash drives developed at MIPT can be used in a secure computer system from which foreign data cannot be entered or removed. For example, within the local network of an enterprise. Integrating flash cards with an authentication unit into an information system does not reduce its security, since external media cannot be used outside of it.

“If an attacker decides to bypass the established restrictions and remove the memory chip from the flash drive in order to read data directly from it, he will not be able to do this, since he will see the data in encrypted form. In this case, a legal user who opens a flash drive on an authorized computer will see a regular file,” — continues Valery Konyavsky.

The developers' immediate plans include entering into small-scale production of secure flash drives exclusively. It is assumed that the finished product will be import-independent, that is, it will be made exclusively from domestic components.