diskAshur2 Design and usage

For a company to say that they have made the most secure hard drive ever takes guts and when a company with such a strong history in security devices says it, the impact is far greater. The diskAshur2 is a fully hardware encrypted platform agnostic portable hard drive. Essentially what this means is it’ll work right out of the box on any operating system out there. If you’re one of those people still living in the Windows XP world however will need to convert the MBR to work on XP. This isn’t a huge deal but something to be aware of.

The drive comes in a very elegantly designed box. It details out all the key features of the diskAshur2 and has a security seal to ensure tamper protection during transit. Opening up the box you’re offered a user manual, a portable rubber protective case and the diskAshur2 drive. The manual contains very important information to get you started.

The diskAshur2 is packaged in a fully rubberized cover with the PIN keypad prominently located in the center of the drive. 3 LED lights adorn the top of the keypad while the USB cable sits on the side of the drive. One complaint I have with the diskAshur2 design is the short length of the USB cable. It only measures approx 8 – 10cm which limits your operating radius with other devices. Overall it’s a very well built and sturdy unit which comes in black, blue, red and green variants to suite varying tastes.

Drive Usage

The diskAshur2 supports USB 3.1 and if you have a supporting device you will enjoy the extra speeds offered. Soon as you plug in the drive, the diskAshur2 will start in locked mode and a red padlock icon will be displayed.

The factory default password the diskAshur2 is shipped out with is 11223344. You need to press this sequence of numbers and press the unlock button to start using the drive. Once the correct sequence is entered the green LED padlock will light up informing you the drive is ready.

One of the unique and underlying security features of the GDPR compliant diskAshur² is the dedicated hardware based secure microprocessor (Common Criteria EAL4+ ready), which employs built-in physical protection mechanisms designed to defend against external tamper, bypass attacks and more.

The provided user manual does a good job in getting things started for you. It’s very detailed and contains pretty much everything you need in a clearly laid out manner.

Getting Started

Your first step should be to change the default password of the drive to something unique. Not you can device very complex passwords using the shift key on the numeric pad. Unless you have a pretty basic password brute force attacks on the diskAshur2 will be extremely tough due to its in-built protection. You only get a total of 15 attempts before the drive physically locks down and deletes the encryption keys. This pretty much renders all data in the drive useless and cannot be recovered by any means. Your only option now is to factory reset the drive which will recreate the factory default encryption keys and format the drive.

BadUSB is another vulnerability that has been locked down on the diskAshur2. Even though it’s only a theoretical vulnerability, the fact that the firmware comes locked is definitely a benefit.

Other cool security features:

Self destructing PIN: You can designate a PIN to self destruct the encryption key along with its stored data just like in the movies if you so desire. If the situation you’re in requires such drastic action, this feature can be mighty useful. iStorage seem to have thought of all possible angles from a security and user’s point of view when designing the diskAshur2.

Auto lock: If you’re a security freak but absent minded at times, the diskAshur2 has got you covered. It has an auto lock feature which you can assign the time to lock itself out when it doesn’t detect any activity.

Wear Resistant Epoxy Coated Keypad: The diskAshur2’s wear resistant epoxy coated keypad hides key usage to avoid tipping off a potential hacker to commonly used keys.

Tamper Proof Design: If a potential hacker goes all the way as trying to disassemble the diskAshur2, super tough epoxy resin covering the drive will ensure the internal components are permanently destroyed if anyone tries to pry their way into the drive. It’s just another barrier among the many layers of security iStorage have incorporated into the diskAshur2.

Employing AES 256-bit XTS hardware encryption, the iStorage diskAshur2 seamlessly encrypts all data on the drive in real-time, keeping your data safe even if the hard drive is removed from its enclosure. There’s no performance degradation when copying to the drive, which mind you is encrypting your data on the fly as it’s saving it.