How Is This Different Than A Regular USB Drive?įIPS 140-2 Level 3 Certification – The IronKey S1000B is a FIPS-certified device. If crypto owners choose to keep their holdings in a non-custodial wallet, outside of an exchange (opens in new tab), forgetting or losing the private key becomes a fatal mistake.Now you can safely carry your files and data with you wherever you go. Decentralization is part of what attracts many people to the world of cryptocurrency, but it also involves playing with fire to some extent.

The reason so much Bitcoin is lost is that the network is not overseen by any single entity, so there is no safety mechanism to prevent loss. Hundreds of millions of dollars in Bitcoin was also lost by crypto exchange Quadriga after the untimely death of its CEO, Gerald Cotten, who was the only person with access to the wallets containing the funds. In 2013, it emerged an IT technician from the UK had accidentally thrown away a hard drive (opens in new tab) containing 7,500 Bitcoin, which is thought to be buried at a nearby landfill site. While his situation is certainly an unenviable one, Thomas is not the first (and likely won’t be the last) to have lost a large sum in Bitcoin. In short, all Kingston can do to help customers avoid data loss is to advise them to “check for keyboard malfunctions” before entering a password and recommend “that all data on removable USB storage is also backed up elsewhere to protect against drive loss, theft, or damage.”

“We have high-level corporate, government and military customers who ask for an even lower number as their data protection needs are highly sensitive,” the spokesperson added. In some cases, clients demand an even more stringent approach to protecting the data stored in their encrypted drives. The default setting is ten attempts when drives leave our factory,” explained the firm. “There is no backup password or alternative method, other than the original password that was set up by the user to retrieve the data. But there is no secret backdoor built into the devices, to prevent the opportunity for abuse by hackers, and there are no other fall-backs either. Kingston has no way to recover the data, as designed.” Bitcoin wallet tragedyĪccording to Kingston, this is not the first time a customer has been locked out, or almost locked out, of their encrypted drive. This policy helps thwart potential brute-force attacks. “The drive then forces a reformat and requires a new password to start over.

Iron key usb stick