This portable drive is pricey, but its encryption software is rock-solid.
Laptop Magazine - 11/14/2007
3 1/2 out of 5. The CMS ABS-Secure isn't the cheapest hard drive you can find for its sizes, but it offers an excellent combination of security, mobility, and ease of use. If you're looking for peace of mind, it's worth every penny.
Dana Wollman
Laptop Magazine
11/14/2007
Even if you're not planning on using your notebook to store, say, sensitive legal and medical records, it's frightening to imagine all of your files falling into the wrong hands. CMS' ABS-Secure Encrypted Backup Solution, a password-protected portable drive, is designed to protect you from just that. Armed with preinstalled encryption software and a simple interface, the drive makes safely backing up your documents easy. We tested the drive on an XP notebook, but it's also compatible with Windows 2000 and Vista. Like a run-of-the-mill flash drive, the ABS-Secure doesn't require software installation. Since the software comes preinstalled, all you have to do is plug the drive in, mount it, and open it using a default, easy-to-remember password. It takes up only 47MB, so you can still enjoy plenty of storage space.Once logged in, you can view the drive in a Windows Explorer box and drag and drop whatever files you want to store. Unlike a simple flash key, however, the ABS-Secure requires that you formally "dismount" (eject) the drive before unplugging it. This step is easy to forget if you're in a hurry, and if you do your data won't be saved. The good news is that once you dismount, everything on the drive automatically becomes password-protected. This drive isn't lightning fast, but it's still plenty efficient; backing up our documents folder, which includes 241MB of photos, word docs, and Excel spreadsheets, took 4 minutes and 1 second, or 1 MBps. That's considerably slower than Iomega's eGo drive, which managed 19.3 MBps. The CMS ABS-Secure isn't the cheapest hard drive you can find for its sizes, but it offers an excellent combination of security, mobility, and ease of use. If you're looking for peace of mind, it's worth every penny.
CMS Showcase Products
Database and Network Journal - 10/1/2008
The CE Secure Encrypted solutions offer user friendly and easy to install information storage.
Database and Network Journal
10/1/2008
CMS Products Inc recently showcased the ABSplus and CE Secure Encrypted Storage product ranges. Both new solutions offer users simple ways of dealing with complicated problems such as backup, recovery and encrypted information storage. The ABSplus backup and recovery solution comes in two formats, a light and pocket sized mobile device, which connects via a USB port, or it can be installed directly into the hardware on any desktop PC. Once connected, the it will offer full system backup to all partitions in all native file formats, including emails. The CE Secure Encrypted solutions offer user friendly and easy to install information storage. The CE Vault Software allows customers to create encrypted areas on a hard or USB flash drive. The 'vaults' can be attached to emails, meaning users can send secure and encrypted information over emails.
How To Stop Identity Theft
Laptop Magazine - 3/4/2008
This portable hard drive is spacious, easy to use, and will automatically encrypt everything you store in it.
Dana Wollman
Laptop Magazine
3/4/2008
This portable hard drive is spacious, easy to use, and will automatically encrypt everything you store in it. Road warriors can sleep peacefully at night knowing that even if their information is stolen, no one will be able to breach it. More stationary users can use it to avoid storing confidential information on a laptop altogether.
Backup your files automatically and access them anywhere
Laptop Magazine - 8/1/2008
CMS ABS-Secure encrypted backup system takes your files's security seriously. Protected with 256-bit encryption right out of the box, the drive comes with a plethora of backup and syncing options well beyond those of a typical drive.
Backup your files automatically and access them anywhere
Erin Scottberg
Laptop Magazine
8/1/2008
CMS ABS-Secure encrypted backup system takes your files's security seriously. Protected with 256-bit encryption right out of the box, the drive comes with a plethora of backup and syncing options well beyond those of a typical drive. A unique Continuous Data Protection option backs up newly created and edited files, while multi-destination Parallel Backup lets you write to the drive and a NAS device at the same time. The shock-absorbing, rubber DataGuard sleeve ensures the drive's physical security too.
Protecting Portable Storage Devices
Processor Magazine - 12/12/2008
Keep Tabs On Your Data
Robyn Weisman
Processor Magazine
12/12/2008
For most people, portable storage devices—be they a thumb drive dropped in a pocket or a smartphone that provides Exchange access along with restaurant reviews—rank at the top of technologies that have improved their lives. But they can be a curse to IT managers because employees often access enterprise data, only to lose it or have it stolen.
“The further you get from the server, the less actual control you have over [data],” says Gary Streuter, vice president of marketing at storage solutions provider CMS Products (www.cmsproducts.com). “You can lock up the servers, but client-side machines sitting out in an office are harder” to monitor, which means an employee might easily download something from his office computer to a USB key without your being the wiser—unless, of course, you keep some of these tips in mind.
Encryption Is A Must
According to Streuter, organizations are increasingly moving toward encryption as a way to keep mission-critical data out of the wrong hands. “Let’s assume you’re an accountant, and you’ve decided to work out of the house tomorrow, so you take a thumb drive and you download the payroll files on it. It falls out of your purse,” Streuter says. Whoever finds the thumb drive could conceivably retrieve employee Social Security numbers and bank accounts for automatic deposits, among other things.
Encrypted data requires a password to unlock that drive. And while passwords can vary in strength, most would-be thieves tend to go for low-hanging fruit, so chances are the person who finds an encrypted drive will ignore it or toss it out.
Leverage Your Security
Sean Martin, vice president of marketing at endpoint security solutions provider SkyRecon (www.skyrecon.com), points out that you should remember to leverage what you do from a systems protection perspective together with protecting portable storage devices from data theft and loss.
In other words, use the antivirus protection, host intrusion protection, and related technologies you have in place to make sure your information is also shielded from attack and compromise from malware and other threats. “Malware on the device could be another entry point just like floppy drives of years ago,” says Martin. “You want to protect your environment from attack through the device.”
Associate Devices With Specific Users
Martin says associating a portable storage device with a specific user helps to guard against threats, particularly ones from inside the company. For example, only the financial officer can use his own serial-numbered USB drive on his machine. “This effectively means the officer can’t go to a different machine and steal data if he wanted to. This locks the device to person and machine, ensuring his data is used by him on these devices,” says Martin.
This strategy also prevents someone from taking her storage device and plugging it into another machine or logging into her PC as a guest to get around the system, which helps stave off any insider theft of data, says Martin.
By using the serial numbers and vendor ID numbers of portable storage devices, a good third-party security solution will allow you to dictate which numbers can be used to access your network, says Nick Cavalancia, vice president of Windows management at Windows network management solution provider ScriptLogic (www.scriptlogic.com). “This restricts employees from bringing in a rogue portable storage device to download data,” Cavalancia says.
Consider Third-Party Software
Cavalancia points out that Microsoft Windows’ built-in Group Policy controls provide a blanket all-or-nothing lockout on USB storage; however, these controls may not be sufficiently granular for many organizations, which might want to allow a CFO greater access to files than a payroll clerk.
Third-party software can provide you with “the power to set policies allowing some users to have read-only access on available devices, completely allow or deny access for others, and enforce device lockdown for both local and remote users,” says Cavalancia. “Businesses can look for software solutions that can lock USB ports or have permissions and policies in place that can control who can have access to which files, where, and when.”
Track Data Leaving Your Network
CMS Products’ Streuter recommends having some type of data-tracking application that can tell you the parameters of a given file, including its name, size, the time it was downloaded, and who was logged onto the computer when it was downloaded.
For his part, Cavalancia says that because breaches will happen despite anyone’s best efforts, data-tracking applications should also have reporting and alert capabilities, so that you can locate any individual who has inappropriately downloaded information. “Central reports will also allow administrators to see all attempts at restricted activities, [and forewarn] users with desktop alerts that they are performing a restricted operation, such as connecting an unauthorized USB stick, iPod, laptop, or PDA,” says Cavalancia.
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