Why Kanguru Strongly Recommends Having A Robust USB Security Policy In Place

A contractor hired by a technology company working to help distribute Covid-19 pandemic stimulus for hardest-hit residents of the city, misplaced a USB flash drive containing the personal information of the entire population of Amagasaki, Japan; over 460,000 residents. The technician had put the thumb drive in his bag and went out to a restaurant with friends after work. While there, he became heavily intoxicated, and stumbled out onto the street where he fell asleep. Waking up around 3am, he could not recall the evening or remember where he put his bag containing the flash drive.

The USB device contained the names, home addresses, date of birth, bank account numbers, tax data and welfare benefit information of every resident in the city of Amagasaki.

Terrified and taking valuable time off work, he spent the following day looking for the lost drive to no avail. After reporting the lost USB to authorities, the company was informed.  A search party was put together, but again no flash drive was found. Officials regrettably decided to hold an uncomfortable briefing which prompted the mayor to apologize to residents for the unfortunate incident. The press conference angered the populace, and the office was flooded with nearly 30,000 calls in the first 24 hours.

A reckless scenario like this is why having a robust IT security policy in place such as Kanguru Remote Management and Defender Encrypted Flash Drives is so crucial for organizations, which could have prevented such an embarrassment. Thankfully after several days of anguishing indignity and great distress, the flash drive was found, and did not appear to be tampered with.

Despite the happy ending, this event demonstrates a vivid picture of just how quickly situations can escalate that could lead to a devastating and very costly data security breach. If the organization had a strong IT security policy in place using Kanguru Defender® Flash Drives managed by Kanguru Remote Management Console™ (KRMC™), the contractor’s flash drive could have been located, remotely disabled or wiped immediately upon discovery of the loss from anywhere in the world. Furthermore, an IT Security Administrator could have initially configured specific permissions limiting where the flash drive could and could not be used as well as other provisions. These restrictions could have locked out the flash drive from being used anywhere outside of the company. Along with the military grade AES 256-bit hardware encryption of a Kanguru Defender USB drive, any attempt by someone else to try to access any data on the flash drive would have been futile.

KANGURU REMOTE MANAGEMENT CONSOLE AND DEFENDER ENCRYPTED USB DRIVES

Kanguru’s affordable, fully-integrated USB security management solution is used by security-conscious organizations all over the world including government, defense, military, healthcare, hospitals, energy, utilities and education to protect their data on USB drives. People use USB drives because they are convenient and portable. Implementing Kanguru Defender secure USB drives and KRMC creates a very powerful defense in protecting data, allowing organizations to utilize the convenience of USB to go about their business under the robust security policies of the company anywhere in the world.

Kanguru Remote Management Console allows IT security officers to manage, monitor and locate USB drives, limit use of drives by domain, remote wipe or disable lost or stolen drives, set security policies, create reports, and so much more.  It's easy to implement, and can be managed through the cloud or a self-hosted version for enterprise.