12
Aegis Secure Key Brute-Force Protection
What is Brute-Force Attack?
A
Brute-Force
Attack
is a means of breaching a cryptographic data defense scheme by
systematically running an astronomical number of decryption possibilities. With AES 256
having never been cracked, the data stored on a Secure Key is going to be more than
well-protected against brute-force. But brute-force attacks aren’t necessarily aimed at the
bulk of the data itself, but rather, at the drive’s access PINs. After all, PINs are usually
the weakest links of any data protection plan, and as such, PINs are essentially all that a
brute-force attack needs to decrypt.
Brute-Force Feature
1. After three unsuccessful attempts, the Aegis Secure Key will add additional time
delays to each subsequent try thereafter. The
RED
LED will blink the number of failed
attempts after three, all the way up to the tenth (and final) try.
2. After up to ten unsuccessful attempts, the keypad will lock up, no functions will work,
and the
RED
LED will blink at a rate of three flashes per second.
3. From this point, the key will only allow up to ten additional attempts before the key
assumes that it is under brute-force attack and automatically deletes all of its data.
4. To gain these ten extra attempts, press and hold the
5
button and then press the
UNLOCK
button until the
RED
and
GREEN
LEDs blink alternately.
5. Enter the code “
LastTry
”
(5278879)
and press the
UNLOCK
button.
--You will now have ten additional attempts.
6. When the key is successfully unlocked, the Brute-Force counter will return to zero.
The number of attempts possible, both before and after the LastTry (5278879) code is
entered, can be set (in Admin Mode) between two and ten attempts.
Setting the before/after attempts to the minimum of two would allow for a total of four
attempts (two before entering the last try code and two after.)
To reduce the number of Brute-Force attempts:
1. Enter the Admin mode. (Hold
0
for five seconds – with the
RED
LED
blinking, enter the Admin PIN and press the
UNLOCK
button.) The
BLUE
LED will
glow solidly.
3. Press and hold the
UNLOCK
+
5
button for three seconds.
The
RED
LED will double-blink.
4. Press the number of before/after attempts desired on the numeric keypad ( 2 - 9 .)
The
GREEN
LED will blink the same number of times to correspond to the number
you have entered (for example: the
8
button will result in eight blinks, and yield eight
attempts
before
the LastTry code and another eight attempts
after
, yielding a total
of 16.) To return the key to its default setting, press the
1
then
0
keys to change the
number back to ten attempts.
Note: The number of before and after attempts are the same, i.e., 4 before / 4 after,
8 before / 8 after, etc.