Personal data security is a massive issue at the moment. Google is always looking to increase user security and their Advanced Technology and Project (ATAP) group, has been working on this issue with former head of hacker think tank L0pht, Peiter Zatko better known as ‘Mudge’. The team has come up with Project Vault a microSD card jam packed with all the encryption goodies you need.
For a start, it’s designed to be used literally everywhere, from Windows, Mac and Linux PCs, to mobile devices running Android and iOS.
The card runs its own ARM processor, NFC Chip and Antenna and creates a full virtual system, including master boot record, kernel and more to fool whichever system you’re using into thinking it’s just an SD card – but it’s not, it’s jam packed with a suite of encryption protocols and software designed to protect your data. The card comes with Graphics services, Hashing, Signing Bulk Encruption, Streaming Encryption Strong Random Number Generator and 4GB of isolated storage.
Through this setup, your information is designed to be kept inside your ‘Vault’ without ever being exposed to the host system. The tag line is :
Project Vault is your Digital Mobile Safe – Big Security, Small Package.
The device isn’t ready for primetime yet, but there’s a hardware kit coming that’s completely open source (including the processor – an OpenRISC CPU) as is the software, which interested developers can check out on github.com/ProjectVault/orp.
That’s interesting, because Google have traditionally been anti SD cards in mobile phones.