Lake Forest, CA – December 7, 2022 – Nexcopy Inc., a leading manufacturer of advanced flash memory solutions, improved their award winning Drive Manager software to include advanced functions when writing to Secure Digital media.
Nexcopy includes two additional features when writing to Secure Digital media with Drive Manager software. The first additional allows the user to write specific CID values to the memory cards. The second feature allows the user to write protect the memory card so the device becomes read-only.
The two features are used to increase security of the content on the cards. The CID value is often used as a key code to encrypt content on a memory card. The CID value can only be read back through specific vendor commands and sits in ROM (read only memory) on the card itself. The CID value is a hexadecimal value and each card has its own unique value.
The write protect feature improves security by making the SD card read only. Using this type of configuration eliminates the ability of a virus or malware to spread via the memory card. In addition, write protected SD cards eliminates an end-user from deleting, formatting, updating, changing or manipulating the content on the Secure Digital card.
Lock License flash drives by Nexcopy are drives where the user can set the write protection after their data load. This puts the USB into a read-only state. When the USB is read-only the files on the drive cannot be changed, manipulated, deleted or formatted off the drive. The write protection features is a hardware solution and set at the controller level of the device.
Lock License refers to a license Nexcopy puts on the drive to be compatible with our utility to lock and unlock the drive.
Nexcopy offers two software solutions to set the write protection to Lock License drives. Nexcopy offers a GUI (Graphical User Interface) utility to set the state of the drive. In addition, a command line tool is also available to set the write protection. The command line tool allows the user to wrap the write protection step into their own workflow process.
In addition, the Lock License technology gives the user the ability to unlock the drive, make updates or changes to the device, and relock the drive to make it read-only.
The user may perform the locking by either the GUI utility or command line utility. The above technology was made available and released in the spring of 2013.
Security Issue:
Nexcopy Lock License drives have been a tremendous success since its release. However, the solution has a security issue in that only one tool, or method, is used for all customers to lock and unlock drives. Said another way; any one user with our utility could unlock a Lock License drive from any other user. With the upcoming release, this security issue is resolved.
The Upgrade:
The upgrade consists of two elements. The first element is a fundamental change in how the technology works. Starting October 1, 2020 all Lock License drives default to a read-only or write protected state. Whenever power is given to the device the drive is read-only. The second element to the October 1st upgrade is a required password to remove the write protection of the drive. First time use of the drive will require the operator to set and enter a password. From that point forward, only the password will remove the write protection for that specific drive. Note: The drive is always read-able and no password is required to read data from the Lock License flash drive. The password is only related to making the drive a writable device.
GUI Screen Shots
Command Line Screen Shot
Each Lock License drive in the field since its inception (2013) will have the ability to programmatically upgrade to this more secure solution. The GUI and command line tool have automatic upgrade features to update any previous version of a Lock License drive. This upgrade is required for all Lock License drives as the previous technology, due to security issues, will no longer be available by Nexcopy. GUI and command line tool version 2.0.6 or higher will be required to operate Lock License drives.
