Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Protected Memory Stick Easily Cracked

Posted by kdawson on from the not-that-hard-a-hack dept.

Martin_Sturm writes "A $175 1GB USB stick designed to protect your data turns out to be a very insecure. According to the distributer of the Secustick, the safety of the data is ensured: 'Due to its unique technology it has the ability to destroy itself once an incorrect password is entered.' The Secustick is used by various European governments and organizations to secure data on USB sticks. Tweakers.net shows how easy it is to break the protection of the stick. Quoting: 'It should be clear that the stick's security is quite useless: a simple program can be used to fool the Secustick into sending its unlock command without knowing the password. Besides, the password.exe application can be adapted so that it accepts arbitrary passwords.' The manufacturer got the message and took the Secustick website offline. The site give a message (translated from Dutch): 'Dear visitor, this site is currently unavailable due to security issues of the Secustick. We are currently working on an improved version of the Secustick.'"

8 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. There's Your Problem by organgtool · · Score: 3, Funny

    The developers of the Secustick are looking into the problem and they think that the issue is with their algorithm that encrypts the data into ASCII.

  2. French intelligence by stnf · · Score: 2, Funny

    So French intelligence really IS an oxymoron. Go figure.

  3. Mod +1 erudite-sounding by jpellino · · Score: 3, Funny

    mod -5 absent-the-day-they-covered-fallacies

    --
    "Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
  4. Re:Just put - by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    actually, I cracked Truecrypt last year but they paid me a billion dollars to cover it up.

  5. Re:Well they could have been like other companies by jandrese · · Score: 4, Funny

    I love the part where it is "approved by the French intelligence service". Of course it is, since it's so easy to break. Of course it's not approved for their own use, they just want everybody else to use it.

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
  6. Re:Well they could have been like other companies by computational+super · · Score: 4, Funny
    You would have to be an idiot to buy anything security-related from a company like that.

    Which is a shame for this company, because idiots are in such short supply these days...

    --
    Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
  7. Re:$175 for a flash drive? by Falladir · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's sexy to have a device that can actually self-destruct. This is the flash drive that James Bond would use.

  8. That reminds me of Sony/BMG. by haraldm · · Score: 2, Funny

    Our customers are happy with the level of protection that our product offers.

    Duh.

    Does that remind anyone else of "Most people don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care?"

    Oh my god, some people are really projecting their own dumbness at their customers. Such marketroids should really be sacrificed to the war against terror. Or cluebatted.

    --
    open (SIG, "</dev/zero"); $sig = <SIG>; close SIG;