New SSD allows remote data destruction

Nowadays data storage devices are made to be very reliable as they often house extremely important and expensive data. Unfortunately there’s one major drawback – no matter how reliable these devices are, they cannot stop a thief from retrieving the data that is stored inside. This is also true for SSDs but a new solid-state drive promises that you will be able to destroy the sensitive data in case of need and do that… remotely.

The drive we are talking about is called Autothysis 128t and is made by the British company Secure Drives. It does impress with no effort at all – it has 256-bit AES CBC encryption and provides multiple stage user identification as well as remote data destruction, which can be done through the inclusion of a GSM antenna. You can command the SSD by using a special separate device called Token that also allows you to remotely send a command for data destruction. In addition to that the Token has some special features such as the function to destroy data by performing a special move with your hand. Another nice feature is the function to shuffle the Token keyboard for improved security; thus it will be harder for people around you to steal the code that you enter to gain access to the Autothysis 128t SSD.

Unfortunately there’s a price to pay and we are not talking about cash – the Autothysis 128t is slow. It achieves read/write speeds of just 127 MB/sec and 120 MB/sec, respectively and its capacity is no larger than 128 GB. This is the price for the enhanced security.

The Autothysis 128t supports SATA 2.0 and USB 2.0 and can be used inside a computer or as an external drive. In the second case it allows you to reprogram it in such a way so that the data stored gets destroyed when you simply move the drive. The data can also be destroyed if the GSM signal connection gets lost or the battery for the Token gets exhausted – it all depends on you.

The Autothysis 128t costs GBP 1027, if you decide to purchase it; during the first year of usage you get the GSM service for free but for each year after the first one you will have to pay GBP 29.

Source: Securedrives.co.uk