Microsoft To Secure Flash Drives
Flash drives have become the equivalent of modern-day floppies: they’re portable, convenient and easily accessible. Unfortunately, they suffer the same security problems that their predecessors struggled with. Microsoft is going to address those issues through a feature pack, which differentiates itself with a service pack by adding new features. The pack is called Storage 1.0.
Storage 1.0 will include new ways to work with Blu Ray discs and will support some new SmartCard types, both of which are nice features to have, but the point of real interest to mobile technology is the addition of what Microsoft calls it’s Active Storage Platform, in which portable devices like external hard drives and USB flash drives can be controlled and authenticated according to the IEEE 1667 standard.
It’ll be interesting to see how this is going to be implemented. If it works as advertised, companies will be given more flexibility in terms of using flash drives within their networks. That’s certainly a better option compared to banning their use altogether.
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