Thursday, November 17, 2011

How to Handle USB Flash Drives in the Workplace

By Nick Motari


Having gained acceptance significantly over recent years, the state of the art USB flash drives have experienced a boost in sales ever since they were introduced in the market. Miniaturization now means that you can own a flash drive no larger than a tie pin! Flash design has brought the prices plunging down so that nowadays any person with a little spendable earnings can afford one.

They have really become so popular that many offices have now vetoed them. The reason is company security. Bosses are afraid that delicate info might be stolen without their knowledge, or used to transfer viruses to the corporation's computer systems causing them to crash or corrupt vital information. The later though is extremely unlikely thanks to free computer virus protection downloads.

Because of these security alerts, some companies have basically taken steps to disable the USB ports on their employee's PCs.

Some entities buy small flash units that they have decorated with their Logos, and then give them to their employees to wear when they're on the field to publicize the business. But even in cases like these they still often outline that they are not to be worn in the office.

Despite these measures, miniscule flash units are now so readily available in all sorts of shapes and guises, and are therefore more complicated to recognize. Rather than take any chances, firms disable all USB ports in their offices so there is no chance of secret information being secretly downloaded.

Whether or not there is no crime intended, a worker who is legitimately carrying company information around on a flash device could lose or misplace the device creating a serious security risk. Any person picking it up, or perhaps even having stolen the unit, would then have accessibility to the information it contains.

This poses a major issue as to the best way to store company flash drives that contain most likely sensitive material, that might, in the wrong hands, is detrimental to the business.

In most day to day non-public applications, USB flash drives are used to download things for personal consumption such as music files and photos. They seem to be a handy way of storing information intensive files remotely, away from home PCs, portables and notebook, therefore liberating their hard drives.

This indicates that these files are kept safe in the event the hard drive fails or gets attacked by hackers or computer viruses. Flash drives come in numerous sizes, so you can choose the best one dependent on how much information you would like to store. Although not costly, the prices get higher the more capacity the drive has.

Computers are utilised for more activities day after day. While they were once fundamentally just straightforward number crunchers, today folk use them to communicate, to store and display pictures, to store and play music files, and to shop, in the same way as flash drives can be used to store pictures and music, they can store presentations also , and some companies now take advantage of this ability.

So instead of dragging a laptop around with them to show clients assorted sales displays, it is now enough for staff to take a flash drive only preloaded with the appropriate information. This assumes naturally that the client has a P. C. or laptop PC they are prepared to lend, on which the presentation can then be viewed.

As security at airfields around the globe gets tighter, it's often a good idea to test that the safety laws allow flash drives to be carried. Nine times out of ten there's no problem, but you never can tell its best to be safe, instead of sorry.

Either way, when utilized in the right way, and carried or stored in a safe manner, USB flash drives are a vital and convenient piece of subordinate kit that reinforce storage capacity, and aid mobility.




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