The convenience of external hard drive and portable storage applications have also introduced an increasing risk of exposing sensitive data. To safe guard the sensitive confidential and personal information, many private and public organizations have implemented various software and hardware encryption. Most software or hardware data encryption products in the market are based on the industry standard proven data encryption algorithms - DES (Data Encryption Standard), TDES (Triple DES) and AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) that are certified by NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) of USA and CSE (Communications Security Establishment) of Canada. To learn more about data encryption and its various industrial standards, please visit the following URL link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipher

Addonics Saturn Cipher hard drive enclosure kit, a hardware encryption solution for the hard drive, is by far the most secure and simplest to deploy, particularly for large organizations. Below are some of key benefits of Addonics hardware encryption products:

• High performance - Data is encrypted and decrypted on the fly by a certified cryptographic engine inside an ASIC without taking any CPU resources
• Platform independency - There is no software or driver to install to use Addonics encryption products. As a result, it can be deployed in any system running any OS. This is important in an organization with multi-platform computing and legacy systems.
• Data portability - Addonics encryption storage device, designed with its USIB interface, can be used as an internal removable hard drive or an external hard drive connecting to USB, SATA, Firewire or CardBus/PCMCIA interface. Unlike many software or hardware products that limit accessing the encrypted hard drive to certain specified computer system, Addonics encryption storage device can be accessed by practically any system while still maintaining a high level of security.
• No training required - There is no password to remember nor running any special program commands. The solution is truly plug and play. Encryption and decryption is controlled by a physical key.
• Low TCO (Total cost of ownership) - With hardware based encryption, there is no IT maintenance required, no software version to maintain and no updates to keep track of.

Bullet Proof security

The Saturn Cipher encryption implementation offers practically bullet proof security compared to a software encryption implementation.

Software encryption

It is well documented that a modern computer may break software-based DES 40-bit encryption in a few days or in a few hours if you can somehow manage to increase your computing power. To break software based DES 64-bit encryption, the scale of computing power you must gather with will dramatically exceed your imagination. There are only specialized organizations capable of managing supercomputers or thousands of personal computers running in parallel that can discern the secrecy. Depending on the level of actual investment, a few months or even years are normally expected. Having stated that, breaking software DES 40/64-bit requires special skills and expertise. It isn’t something that regular Joe Smith can do efficiently.

Hardware encryption

It is extremely hard to break hardware-based full disk encryption. The technique deployed to break software-based encryption cannot be practically deployed to break hardware-based encryption implemented in the Saturn Cipher design.

A hardware-based full disk encryption solution such as Saturn Cipher encrypts everything on the hard drive including boot sector, OS, temp./swap files. There isn’t any clear text left on the hard drive for trace, thus eliminating entirely the possibility of analyzing useful patterns. Thus, traditional wisdom and techniques of breaking software-based DES 40/64-bit is no longer applicable as no OS information is available therefore no software application can be executed, which greatly deters the process of key breaking as every wrong attempt will require a new power on reset process of the hardware or reconnection of the Saturn Cipher drive.

So what’s so important about the power on reset and how does it deter the key breaking process?

A Saturn Cipher hardware-based full disk encryption solution at DES 40-bit strength offers a possible combination of 1,099,511,627,776 keys. The actual key will normally be yielded when the 50% of the key domain is eliminated. A typical power on reset process lasts 0.4 second or more. The following simple calculation displays time required in order to run through the 50% of the 40-bit possible key domain:

1,099,511,627,776 x 50% x 0.4 seconds = 219,902,325,555 seconds = 3,665,038,759 minutes = 61,083,979 hours = 2,545,165 days = 6,973 years

By increasing from DES 40 to DES 64-bit encryption, the possible combination keys increase dramatically to 72,057,594,037,927,936. When combined with the minimum 0.4 sec hardware reset, the time required in order to run through the 50% of the 64-bit possible key domain jumps up to 456,982,528 years!

Or, a trained code breaker maybe able to directly connect to the Saturn Cipher hardware-based full disk encryption hardware circuit interface then attempt to intercept a complete data transfer for deciphering, assuming known exact position of both clear text and cipher text. Even if a potential hacker who has the clear text and its corresponding cipher text, attempts to derive the cryptographic key would still consume years as DES/TDES are known for resisting “Known Answer Test”. A 40-bit hardware-based full disk encryption solution specifically under the known answer attack is somewhat weak but 64-bit solution will be a totally different scale.

Based on the above analysis, we feel confident that the Saturn Cipher 64-bit products are more than adequate for most applications. We do realize, however, there are rigid security requirements that can not stand a chance from being compromised. In that case, we shall recommend using Saturn Cipher 128-bit versions.