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Victorinox challenges Brits to hack biometric-encrypted Secure Pro pen drive

by Parm Mann on 12 March 2010, 11:54

Tags: Victorinox

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qawk3

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We've seen a decent showing of super-secure USB pen drives in recent weeks, but they're all likely to be no match for the biometric-encrypted Secure Pro.

The device, pictured above, is the work of Victorinox - best known for the iconic Swiss Army Knife - and claims to be "completely un-hackable".

Fortunately for those who believe anything and everything can and will be hacked, Victorinox is offering you the chance to have a go. The manufacturer is inviting individuals who think they have the programming power to break the code to its flagship London Store on March 25th, where you'll be given two hours to try and access the hardware.

Sounds like a challenge, and if the hacker community needed any additional incentive, here's one; Victorinox is offering a £100,000 prize to anyone who succeeds.

Don't look at this as an easy pay day, though. The Secure Pro made a similar appearance at CES earlier this year, where US challengers tried and failed to beat the drive's security.

Reckon you can prove once and for all that the UK is where the real talent lives? Details on how to enter the competition can be found at PlayTheFuture.co.uk.



HEXUS Forums :: 6 Comments

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I assume the challenge is the break the encryption and not fool the biometric sensor, because that would be… well… really easy.
Not exactly giving much chance to the hackers if they're only giving them 2 hours to be honest.
Quite true, I'm sure once a method has been determined it could be done with time to spare, but it could take a lot of work to figure that method out.
really, it appears to be a RF scanner, which doesn't aim to scan the fingerprint on the surface of the finger, but rather underneath the surface. Not that easy at all to fake!

I'm assuming that they're not just using the fingerprint scanner for access control (if that where the case it would be easy enough, if destructive testing where allowed, to pull the memory and solder it on a similar usb stick), rather as a method for generating a key for decrypting the data. this would then require some sort of brute force method, or some sort of dictionary based attack using synthetic fingerprints
so i cant just turn up with a hammer? :(