STMicroelectronics and ClevX Offer World’s First Wireless User-Authentication Technology Platform for IoT-Device Security

For the first time, users can interact with secure portable storage (full-disk, XTS-AES 256-bit encryption) from their smartphones or wearable devices where all user data on the drive is encrypted and can be locked/unlocked using single- or multi-factor authentication. The technology is ideally suited for consumer, corporate, and industrial applications such as healthcare, home automation and security, secure-access control systems, and portable data storage.

“IoT-device authentication has long required trade-offs among security, convenience and mobility. The ClevX DataLock BT-secured portable storage provides the capability to actually enjoy the best of all worlds,” said Luca Difalco, VP of Marketing at STMicroelectronics’ Americas Region. “While we’re demonstrating the capability in an easy-to-use hardware-encrypted secure USB-Drive, the elegance and versatility of the solution is provided by an application that we can add to our BlueNRG device to make lock-down security accessible via Bluetooth Smart.”

ST and ClevX have reference designs for secure portable storage media, including Flash, hard-disk, and solid-state disk drives. These designs use ST’s Bluetooth Smart chips (BlueNRG) and ultra-low-power STM32L0 MCUs and are immediately available for licensing and partnerships, including both ST/ClevX-based hardware and firmware in addition to the related smartphone and wearables apps.

The ST/ClevX reference designs are OS-host agnostic. USB drives with the DataLock BT technology operate across all computer platforms and embedded systems while providing various easy-to-use security layers (including a wireless lock/unlock mechanism, phone as an authentication factor, phone + PIN, or phone + PIN + userID/location/time). The reference designs support USB Remote Management, which can be critical for corporate deployments and remote password resets, drive disabling and erasing, and successful implementation of corporate-wide policies.

“With the sensitive personal and corporate information that people carry on their USB drives, loss can easily lead to substantial financial penalties and undesired public disclosure,” said Lev Bolotin, Founder/CEO, ClevX, LLC. “Using ST and ClevX technologies, the DataLock® BT Security solution protects data on a USB with ease and elegance. Consumers, healthcare workers, mobile professionals, and corporations can improve their productivity and security on-the-go by using their phones to authenticate themselves to their USB drives and change security options, as required.”