Secure USB Drives
USB drives (also called thumb drives or media sticks), while serving a useful purpose, present some of the highest risk to sensitive College information. If you lose one that has significant personally identifiable information (PII) on it, it could result in breach notification to all those persons potentially affected, government investigation and involvement, and significant penalties and costs to the College, let alone damage to the College’s image and reputation.
Therefore, it is imperative that you:
- Avoid using USB drives and portable hard drives altogether. They present too much risk.
- NEVER put personal health information (PHI) on USB or portable hard drives;
- If you have to use one, limit it to 4 GB or less in size, and use an encrypting drive.
The College is currently implementing Windows 7 and 8 (Enterprise version) “Bit Locker” (full disk encryption) and “Bitlocker to Go” (For USB drives) technology at the desktop.
If your computer already has this version installed, then you can easily create an encrypted USB drive (if you must have one), using regular, less expensive USB drives – just remember to use one 4 GB or less. And don’t forget to write your password down and lock it in a secure drawer or cabinet. If you forget your password, you will permanently lose your data stored on the device.
If you are not using this version of Windows and you must have a USB drive, please obtain a secure, encrypting Kingston Data Traveler 4000 drive from the Information Security Unit at infosec@algonquincollege.com