Kingston Technology said today a new USB flash drive it has developed received Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2 certification, meaning it supposedly is very, very secure. It is known as the DataTraveler BlackBox and you’ll find it pricing at a maximum of around $424 for an 8GB model.

This FIPS 140-2 certification, said Kingston, “requires a validation process that meets federal requirements set by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Communications Security Establishment of the Government of Canada. This is critical because many governmental agencies in the United States and Canada mandate that sensitive “data at rest” (i.e., all information not in the network) must be encrypted with the FIPS 140-2 standard.”  Each time the drive runs it does a power-on self test to verify that the encryption architecture is functioning.

Other features of this USB flash drive include 256-bit hardware based AES encryption, enhanced password protection, a rugged design and multi-failed password shutdown protocols. The DataTraveler BlackBox, which seems only to be missing a fingerprint reader or guard dog, should be available now.

Kingston DataTraveler BlackBox