samsung portable ssd t3 encryption is it safe

'Several SSDs with hardware encryption appear to be busted,' said John Hopkins cryptographer Matthew Green. That means that if you decided to use Bitlocker for extra safety and owned one of the above-mentioned drives, you could have basically zero protection. Bitlocker, which lets you encrypt your files on Windows 10, defaults to the disk's built-in encryption, rather than its own system. The problem is bad, but Microsoft made it worse. It's like jumping out of a plane with an umbrella instead of a parachute. Another used an empty string as a password, meaning you could decrypt it just by hitting the 'Enter' key.īeing earnest now: Microsoft trusting these devices to implement Bitlocker has to be the single dumbest thing that company has ever done. To gain access, the researchers first reverse-engineered their firmware, and found what they called a 'pattern of critical issues.' One drive could be unlocked with virtually 'any password,' the researchers said, because the validation system didn't work. The drives affected by the issues are the Crucial MX100, MX200 and MX300, along with Samsung's T3 and T5 portable SSDs and the 840 EVO and 850 EV internal SATA SSDs. That means if you happened to have one of those SSDs and used Bitlocker, attackers with access to your PC could easily gain access to your files.

Then, to make matters worse, they noticed that Windows 10 Bitlocker defaults to SSD encryption, when available. They first spotted vulnerabilities in the embedded encryption of several SSD models from Samsung and Crucial that allowed them to access data without a password. There’s also a metal edition if you want a bit more style for your drive, and while WD says it’s “performance tuned,” there’s not much difference between the two.Bad computer security can sometimes have a cascading effect, as researchers from the Netherlands discovered. Plus, it comes with WD Backup, WD Security, and WD Utilities applications installed, allowing you to select which files to backup periodically, protect your files with 256-AES hardware encryption, as well as letting you check the drive’s status and reformat easily. The My Passport Ultra measures 110 x 81.5 x 12.7 mm, and weighs 153 grams, so it’s nice and light, and will fit in your pocket for easy transportation. It’s not all about the looks though, as this is a fairly speedy external drive which comes in 500GB, 1TB, 1.5TB, 2TB, 3TB, and even a 4TB model. The drive itself has a handful of colors to choose from, plus WD puts out Grip Packs which can add even more colors to the outside. The Western Digital My Passport Ultra has a bit more style to it than a lot of other portable drives, which might be important to you.

Samsung portable ssd t3 encryption is it safe