Ironkey: The most secure USB flash drive?
April 9, 2008 — Giannellathe IronKey
The IronKey is a hardware-based, high-grade encrypted USB drive.
Security:
There’s no external software disc used to set up the IronKey. When you plug IronKey into a computer, it mounts two new volumes: a Windows- or Mac-compatible CD-ROM volume with the IronKey software on it and the encrypted volume itself. Double-click on the CD-ROM volume and the IronKey software will launch, either to configure a new IronKey or to mount the encrypted volume.
The IronKey will normally prompt you for your password to access the secure file volume. If you run out of tries, the IronKey self-destructs. Not with a bang or a flash; the data encryption keys stored on the drive will be erased, making the data impossible (or at least unfeasibly difficult) to recover. Tampering physically with the device (i.e., trying to crack it open) causes it to self-destruct as well.
In my opinion, it’s like getting Bond gadgets off the shelf 
Passwords can also be securely backed up to IronKey’s my.ironkey.com service and recovered from there over a secure connection, and the IronKey password can be changed without wiping and reformatting the volume. When you want to disconnect IronKey, select Lock Drive in the IronKey application, wait for the app to quit and then just unplug the drive.
Design:
In terms of its design and construction, IronKey definitely lives up to its name: It’s jacketed in a metal case with waterproof gaskets with its components encased internally in an epoxy resin. Its manufacturers claim that IronKey can survive dropping, throwing, drowning and so on. All data on the drive is encrypted using AES CBC-mode encryption, with all of the encryption and decryption taking place in the hardware itself.
Features:
The IronKey has a mechanism for bundling applications directly on the drive, too. For instance, if you have an existing Firefox user profile under the current login, the secure version of Firefox (running from the IronKey) seems to use some data from that user profile, such as stored form data, although not from passwords.
More at: https://www.ironkey.com/demo
