Firmware is the software component where data and instructions are stored and operate on a hardware device. Since it is the "brain" of the drive, it could be a coveted target for hackers. Kanguru Hardware-Based Secure Firmware protects this component by consistently validating the identity of the device with a digitally-signed component. Each time the device is booted, secure firmware self-checks to ensure the device identifies itself is what it is supposed to be, confirming that it has not been tampered or manipulated. This makes Kanguru secure firmware drives ideal for whitelisting in Endpoint Security environments as trusted devices for highly-sensitive organizations, and helps protect an organization from other tampered devices that might be used for a malware attack. 

In addition, since secure firmware is a separate component from encryption, organizations who may not require the expense of encryption for their data may still want to protect their infrastructure from potential malware threats with secure firmware devices like the Kanguru FlashTrust, Kanguru UltraLock NVMe SSD or secure firmware optical drive burners.

Kanguru provides internal and external, hardware-based digitally-signed, secure firmware devices for organizations that can be trusted on networks and infrastructure. Protect your organization from the possibility of third-party, malicious attacks by using Kanguru secure firmware devices with your Endpoint Security or security policies.

How Kanguru Hardware-Based, Secure Firmware Devices Help Organizations

Your data is one of the most valuable assets to your organization including company financials, personal information of clients, patients, proprietary data, technical data, etc. To conduct good business requires easy access, convenience and portability of this information in order to get work done. Flash drives have become very popular for this reason because of the easy transfer of data. But researchers urge caution for specific circumstances where savvy hackers could potentially use the technology against organizations to wreak havoc on a network or infrastructure. This threat, called "badUSB" could come from a third-party manipulating the firmware of any USB peripheral such as a printer, keyboard, computer mouse, webcam or memory stick to trick the USB into delivering malware that could infiltrate an organization's network.

Energy & Utility companies, Defense Contractors, and Government organizations are just a few of the industries where using secure firmware data storage drives to protect from third-party malware tampering is a good idea. Industries that could be a potential high-target for espionage or even terrorism may choose to be proactive in implementing a solution that helps alleviate this potential threat by using internal and external Kanguru drives with secure firmware implementation.

Organizations and IT professionals that restrict devices to Kanguru trusted secure firmware drives either through a company-wide security policy or endpoint protection, inherently protect their network and infrastructure because the firmware is effectively protected from manipulation.

(Note: Secure Firmware is a separate component from encryption. If you require hardware encryption in addition to secure firmware, please see Kanguru Defender® Hardware Encrypted USB Drives or our Internal Defender Opal Self-Encrypting Drives.)

Is "badUSB" Really As Bad As It Sounds?

In August of 2014, researchers Karsten Nohl and Jakob Lell at a Black Hat security event, revealed a potential threat to USB technology, pointing out that any USB peripheral, including printers, keyboards, computer mice, webcams or flash keys, could be open to a possibility of a third-party hacker physically changing the firmware to deliver infective malware. Although this would be a very difficult thing to do, the news, known as "BadUSB", has worried some organizations that USB devices could be vulnerable to such type of physical tampering.

It is not so much a threat to the average user, but there could be a potential threat to organizations that might be a target for terrorism or cyber-attacks. To combat this, organizations at greater risk can restrict their use of internal and external peripherals to those devices with secure firmware, making it a part of their overall security policy. Secure firmware provides an ideal layer of protection from malware attack. For more on this, please see our blog.

See all Kanguru Secure Firmware Devices