Kingston IronKey D300 Flash Drive Is Secure Enough for NATO

Kingston offers the IronKey D300 flash drive as a portable storage solution for sensitive information.

Now NATO has confirmed just how secure the drive is by awarding it Restricted Level Certification.

By achieving certification, NATO is stating the D300 is good enough for staff to use for sensitive data transport.

"We are pleased that the IronKey D300 series drives are now certified, joining some of our previous encrypted USB drives that were certified in the past, like the D100 and D200,"  said Oscar Escayola, an SSD and flash account manager at Kingston.

"Kingston is committed to creating encrypted USBs that protect military and government level data, so customers with strong data protection requirements can be assured that it will meet their data security demands when sensitive data is in transit."

The USB 3.1 Gen 1 drive is available in sizes ranging from 4GB to 128GB and with up to 250MB/s read speeds and 85MB/s write speeds.

It's the advanced security on offer that's the most impressive feature, though.

The D300 is FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified, meaning it's been formally validated by the US government for effectiveness as a piece of cryptographic hardware.

Achieving Level 3 certification required Kingston to meet certain physical anti-tamper resistance and evidence requirements as well as enable role-based authentication.

There also needs to be physical or logical separation between the interfaces by which "critical security parameters" enter and leave the module.

Kingston uses 256-bit AES-XTS for encryption, and the drive is manufactured using a "rugged zinc casing." Tamper protection is ensured through using epoxy to attach the internal cryptographic module to the casing.

The on-board firmware is also digitally signed and Kingston offers a D300S version, which adds a unique serial number and barcode to each drive.

Even your input is secure with the D300 drives as it ships with a virtual keyboard for entering your password without having to type anything.

Such a high level of security certainly doesn't come cheap.

Even the 4GB version of the IronKey D300 costs over $60, with the 128GB version well over $300.

Kingston offers the IronKey D300 flash drive as a portable storage solution for sensitive information.

Now NATO has confirmed just how secure the drive is by awarding it Restricted Level Certification.

By achieving certification, NATO is stating the D300 is good enough for staff to use for sensitive data transport.

"We are pleased that the IronKey D300 series drives are now certified, joining some of our previous encrypted USB drives that were certified in the past, like the D100 and D200,"  said Oscar Escayola, an SSD and flash account manager at Kingston.

"Kingston is committed to creating encrypted USBs that protect military and government level data, so customers with strong data protection requirements can be assured that it will meet their data security demands when sensitive data is in transit."

The USB 3.1 Gen 1 drive is available in sizes ranging from 4GB to 128GB and with up to 250MB/s read speeds and 85MB/s write speeds.

It's the advanced security on offer that's the most impressive feature, though.

The D300 is FIPS 140-2 Level 3 certified, meaning it's been formally validated by the US government for effectiveness as a piece of cryptographic hardware.

Achieving Level 3 certification required Kingston to meet certain physical anti-tamper resistance and evidence requirements as well as enable role-based authentication.

There also needs to be physical or logical separation between the interfaces by which "critical security parameters" enter and leave the module.

Kingston uses 256-bit AES-XTS for encryption, and the drive is manufactured using a "rugged zinc casing." Tamper protection is ensured through using epoxy to attach the internal cryptographic module to the casing.

The on-board firmware is also digitally signed and Kingston offers a D300S version, which adds a unique serial number and barcode to each drive.

Even your input is secure with the D300 drives as it ships with a virtual keyboard for entering your password without having to type anything.

Such a high level of security certainly doesn't come cheap.

Even the 4GB version of the IronKey D300 costs over $60, with the 128GB version well over $300.