With USB pen drives you can store and transport large amounts of information (files) to home or office more easily than other memory storage devices. Instead of carrying a laptop, you can just take a compact USB drive in your pocket or with your key chain and its read-write capacity allows us to copy, edit and delete the files whenever you wish. However, the portability of USB pen drives and certain other features can lead to data theft and data loss if we do not take necessary precautions:

 

This article helps us to prevent these things and makes the data more secure by using some security features that we are often unaware of.

 

 

Since USB pen drives are small and frequently used in homes and offices as portable memory storage devices, there are more chances that they can be lost or stolen easily. To avoid your personal, precious data being accessed by others, you can buy pen drives that come with adequate security features like password protection, encryption or biometric security features.

 

 

If you have encryption features in your flash drive, use them when you store the data as they protect your data from unauthorized access.

 

Most pen drives have password protection feature. Always use this feature. Set the password that is difficult to crack. Change the password periodically.

 

Latest versions of Pen drives come with a feature called ‘biometric fingerprinting‘. This is highly reliable method and it will allow only the legitimate user to access the drive as it uses the finger print of the user. However, if error occurs in its function can result in the accessibility of the drive by the legitimate user himself.

 

A few pen drives come with PAT (Physical Authentication Tokens) features that can protect your PC or laptop from unauthorized access. They can function as simple flash drives as well as a security lock as they come with encryption keys, passwords etc.

 

 

Flash drives can be a potential security threat to your PC or network, if you do not guard the USB ports and your PCs from unauthorized access. As anyone can easily plug the USB drive into the port, access your valuable data or even infect your system with malware like virus. It is important that you take the following precautions:

 

 

Enable the password feature in you OS, which will automatically after 10 or 15 minutes after leaving it unattended. This will help to prevent strangers from accessing your PC.

 

 

If you are a Windows XP user, you can disable USB port with password so that others cannot use it. If you think you do not need USB ports or they are very risky, you can just remove them.

 

 

It is important that you have installed effective antivirus software like Norton and get it updated to fully protect your PC. Scan the flash drive and its contents whenever you open it to access them.