SecureData SecureUSB BT Review
By Adam Noyes
SecureData’s line of secure encrypted drives mean true protection of your data, and unprecedented control over when and where it can be shared. The SecureUSB BT is a blue tooth USB thumb drive from SecureData, perfect for holding sensitive information. It can also be controlled entirely from your smart phone.
RichardTech creates great video editorials on some of the latest and most exciting technology ranging from video and streaming, to storage, to the latest smart phone devices. Recently, they covered the SecureUSB BT in great detail. Check out the video, below.
Check out this video from RichardTech to learn more.
Richardtech.net recently created a great article on the SecureData SecureUSB BT, getting into some of the features of the device.
Check out some highlights from that article, below.
The design of the SecureUSB BT is not too dissimilar to a standard flash drive, it has a protective metal sleeve that protects the drive when not in use and slides over a rubber seal at the base of the drive, providing an IP57 dust and water-resistance rating. The sleeve provides a good seal, but it can be quite difficult to remove from the flash drive at times as it is such a strong seal around the base of the device. With the sleeve off, the flash drive itself is fairly plain – aside from some branding and device info printed on the underside.
The drive itself is constructed from plastic and features a hole at the end which can be used to tie to a lanyard or the included wristband. The plastic has a soft-touch finish that feels pleasant to hold and is in a blue colour which corresponds with the SecureData brand colours. The top of the flash drive has an indicator LED which can tell you information about the encryption status of the USB and if there is data being transferred to or from the drive.
Features
If you’re looking at a flash drive in this category, the XTS-AES 256-bit hardware-level encryption is going to be the main appealing feature. This does come at a premium in comparison to a typical USB flash drive, with the SecureUSB BT starting at £70 for an 8GB drive, but you are really paying for the hardware encryption features.
As the drive uses hardware encryption, it does not require any software to be run or installed on your computer, or any computer, you choose to use the drive with – the decryption process is done from the SecureData Lock app on your device. This provides some added flexibility as the flash drive will work with any computer or device that supports USB storage as it detects it as a regular drive once it has been unlocked from the app. The app can be installed onto an Android or iOS device and connects to the flash drive over Bluetooth to authenticate.
The app is straightforward to use and allows you to unlock the flash drive using a 7–15-digit password. I’ve been testing out the app on iOS, but I imagine the functionality will be similar on Android. The app allows me to customise a collection of settings regarding the flash drive such as 2-factor authentication, password recovery and the choice to unlock the flash drive with FaceID or my Apple Watch.
Additionally, within the app, some further security options can be used to harden the flash drive further such as setting the drive to auto-lock after a specified inactivity time or even if you walk away from the drive whilst it is connected to a computer. I found the proximity auto-lock to work effectively, although it would be nice to have the option to fine-tune this setting as it can only be turned on or off.
An interesting feature I found within the app was the remote wipe setting, when enabled, this setting allows you to remotely set the flash drive to immediately wipe itself when it is connected to a mobile device – this sounds like quite a handy feature if you have personal documents or sensitive information stored on the USB.
I really like how the app allows you to easily customize the features you wish to use with the flash drive, and it is straightforward to get set up and running and the app is quick and snappy to use which is great.