Have Your USB Cake and Eat It Too

USB flash drives are a sticky issue. These tiny file-storage devices are popular with corporate workers because of their simplicity, capacity and portability. IT won't support them because they represent a serious security risk, but banning them outright could bring accusations of cramping user productivity.

Msystems, which holds the patent on USB flash drives, wants to please everyone with a new product that provides centralized control for flash drives. MTrust Manager includes a central server that pushes an agent to authorized drives, which can be automatically provisioned, configured, assigned to users and integrated with Active Directory and directory services for policy enforcement. The product can remotely unlock a drive if a user forgets a password, and even wipe the device if it gets lost or stolen. It also keeps an audit trail of every file copied or modified to a USB device, addressing IT's fear of proprietary data theft.

Problem solved? Not quite. To be sure only authorized USB drives are used, msystems makes a product that blocks unauthorized USB devices. Without it, you're compromising enterprise data--and the results of a breach could be hard to swallow.