GuardKey USB Encryption Dongle: Plug and Play Encryption for Hard Drives or Cloud Drives

Software would not install and without it the key is worthless

Neat item. I got it today and it works pretty great. I have always used Ironkey USB drives but they are so expensive - this is like an Ironkey but with unlimited storage potential.

How it works:When you get the package, you open it and plug in the usb drive, you will see that it mounts as 2 separate drives. One is an empty directory, exactly like if you mounted an empty usb flash drive. The other is software and manuals. You install the software and it will ask you to create a master password and a hint.It will then tell you to choose a location to create a "safebox". The safebox can be any hard drive, cloud storage, or on itself. You assign it a drive letter. The safebox is then instantly created and opened. In the notifications area of the taskbar you can click on the guardkey icon and open up the guardkey console. In the console you can manage the various safeboxes you have created and change options. You can set it to automatically open the safebox when the guardkey is plugged in or require the master password when the guardkey is first plugged in. You can also set it to hide the guard key icon in the notifications area when it is unplugged.When you unmount the guardkey, it will instantly close the safebox and it will just be a hidden encrypted file somewhere in the drive you created it in. You cannot find the safebox file by searching for it, I'm not sure if it's saved under a different name or what. And even if you found it you would not be able to open it since it is encrypted with AES 256. When you install it you can choose to not make a shortcut to the guardkey software. I chose this option and was not able to find the guardkey software by searching from the start menu, which is a plus.It's important when encrypting your things that people don't know there is anything encrypted on the system at all. But it's also important that the encryption software is not a pain to use. Guardkey kind of finds a balance between the two extremes.Other software like truecrypt (before it was compromised by the NSA) was on one extreme in terms of safety. You could create encrypted volumes inside encrypted volumes and assign multiple passwords, so that one would open the volume and the other would open the other. That way even if you were found to have an encrypted volume, they would not be able to tell there was a second encrypted volume inside the first and you could just give them the password to the exterior volume and they would just find whatever you wanted them to find, while keeping your true encrypted files safe. It also generated the encryption string using random input by the user. It also allowed features like having to have a specific file located in a specific place before you could open the volume, even when you had the password.What truecrypt did not offer however was ease of use. You had to keep a copy of truecrypt somewhere (preferably on a flash drive), then run the software, locate the encrypted file, mount it, then type in your password. When you were done you had to unmount it before closing it.Would I have liked to see the encrypted volume inside encrypted volume with 2 password feature on guardkey? Yes I would. Is it necessary? In reality, not really. If someone is forcing you to unlock an encrypted volume, you're probably in deep trouble with the government or a prying significant other already. In that situation then yes the nested encrypted volume would help. But if you're just trying to hide porn or something, you don't need that feature.What guardkey does very well is usability. It would be wise to set it so you have to enter a master password when you plug it in, or else it's not much better than a regular flash drive. But I love the option of storing the encrypted volume on any harddrive and clouddrive. If you scrape off the guardkey branding, then you could easily just pass it off as a normal flash drive by throwing some random files in the directory.Overall it's a very nice product and I'd recommend it to friends trying to have some privacy on multi-user machines. I would not recommend this to CIA agents that literally have top secret files, or anything where your life or national security rides on you having a nested encrypted volume.I received this product at a discount in return for an honest review.

The unit itself is very solid and I wish more flash drives were of this quality. I seemed to be made of solid aluminum and I feel fairly confident that it could take a bit of a beating without any issue. The surface of the aluminum is textured a bit (much like a Macbook frame). This provides a very nice feel in your hand and looks excellent on your keychain. Unlike other USB keys and drives I've had in the past, this one won't get destroyed by the other keys on the ring. I did note that the textured surface does create a bit of a scratching sound when you insert & remove it from the computer. I don't believe that this will cause any issues with the USB port since this is only on the outer edges and not the actual electrical contacts. Regardless, it is an odd sound/feeling at first.I installed the software on my Windows PC and it was fairly straightforward. When removed, the files disappeared as advertised. The files actually still remain stored on your local drive but since they are encrypted, they cannot be seen without this key giving "permission" to the software. I am by no means an expert on encryption so I can't say if these files can by "cracked" but 256-bit AES is a solid encryption (to the best of my knowledge).The Cloud feature was something I was interested in since I try to do most of my work through cloud-based services. To use with a service like Google Drive, you still must use a "viewer" software that essentially allows you to view the encrypted files, just as if they were on your local drive. This is unlike U2F key where you authenticate using the USB key to get into your cloud drive.Extra note : The drive did show ~8GB of free space available. I'm not sure if this is reserved for anything the software needs, but appears to be open for use.Overall, a very neat little unit. At the list price, I would say both the software and packaging could use a bit of polishing. The hardware portion was very impressive and the software is something that could easily be improved by GuardKey after purchase via update.I received this item at a discount in exchange for an honest review.