GB2614040A

GB2614040A - USB flash drive secure storage, recovery and desctruction case

Info

Publication number: GB2614040A
Application number: GB2116114.6A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Hussain Shahid
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2021-11-10
Filing date: 2021-11-10
Publication date: 2023-06-28

Abstract

A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case 1 which is secured by sliding, preferably shoot, bolt 19 20 21 keypad 11 locking system, a GPS tracker 22, geofence technology using location based services, penetration sensors 25 and a destruction module, preferably in the form of an electronic destruction module which electronically fries the USB flash drive 27 upon activation. The destruction system may also be triggered remotely via a text message command if the case is lost or stolen and the system may confirm electronic destruction by text. The case comes with a non-removable rechargeable battery 23 which may destroy the USB flash drives when the battery is critically low. The case may have flash drive openings 13A to store the USB drives and put them in electrical communication 26 with the destruction means.

Description

PATENT APPLICATION OF

SHAHID HUSSAIN FOR

USB FLASH DRIVE SECURE STORAGE RECOVERY AND DESTRUCTION CASE

Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to devices which are used to store and destroy USB flash drive memory storage devices.

Background

CO

The use of data storage devices with computers and computer systems is common and wide spread throughout the world. These often consist of data sticks 1.0 or similar devices which have a USB compatible connector end which is inserted into the correct USB port on the computer or device. The sensitive and valuable C\I information is transferred onto the stick and can be stored in case the main C\I system or computer fails and to remove information away from the computer or system to be stored separately.

Police forces, government bodies, security services and other public and private sector firms both national and International have had their sensitive data lost or stolen from these storage devices. Examples are shown in recent events at locations such as airports in which lost USB Sticks that had information related to the important VIP persons security arrangements was lost and placed the persons under considerable risk and action was taken due to sensitive data loss or theft is penalized in the UK and some other parts of the globe. Ensuring sensitive data is destroyed or recovered in loss or theft scenarios is the only solution. This would generally involve a case or box into which the memory devices are stored for storage or during transportation and various examples of these can be seen in the prior art: This is shown in patent W01992006611 (GUSTAVSSON, KARLSSON, AAKERLIND) discloses a security container for portable safe-keeping of valuables and data carriers, such as banknotes, cheque books, credit cards, flexible discs and the like. The security container (2) comprises a first container portion (4) and a second container portion (6), said portions being pivotally connected to each other by means of a hinge (8) and being locked to each other by means of a locking device (18). At least one of said container portions (4, 6) is provided with breakable ampoules (14) containing defacing substance (16) on the inside of an enclosing outer edge flange (11, 12). In the event of forcible opening of the locked security container (2), at least one of the ampoules (14) in the container will break in order to make the valuables in the container (2) useless.

Patent US20140208965 (NOBLITT) discloses methods and apparatus for disabling electronic media according to various aspects of the present technology may comprise a destroyer within a housing. The electronic medium may be placed in the housing and the destroyer may destroy the electronic media. A verification system permits proper destruction of the electronic medium to be verified.

Patent US6275151 (GEHLOT) discloses a cognitive intelligent carrying case which includes an outer shell layer and a plurality of internal layers defining corresponding interior compartments for storing a variety of specific types of items. The outer shell layer includes access type security systems for authenticating the identity of an individual attempting to access the contents of the case. Each of the internal layers includes one or more security systems operable to destroy the specific items contained in the corresponding compartment. In addition, the case includes communication systems that enable communication with authorized users and/or an owner of the case and which enable the locating of the case when such location information is required. When unauthorized access attempts to the case are detected, the location of the case is determined through an onboard GPS system and the owner of the case is contacted. In the event that the owner cannot be contacted or is contacted and provides the requisite instructions, the security systems are activated to destroy the stored contents of the case.

Patent US4931770 (ABRAMSON) discloses a system for transferring information stored on a disc, tape or film is provided which prevents unauthorized or unintentional use or disclosure to third parties of the information contained on the disc, tape or film. The disc, tape or film is contained within a cassette having structure for sensing intrusion into the cassette. The sensing structure triggers a destructive device which destroys the information on the disc, tape or film when intrusion into the cassette is sensed.

Patent CN204257203 (CHEN) discloses a portable data destroying machine. The portable data destroying machine comprises a hollow cubic shell, the upper surface of the shell is fixedly provided with a touch screen, the touch screen and a master control circuit board fixedly arranged on the upper surface of the bottom of an inner cavity of the shell are switched on, and the master control circuit board and an input interface fixedly arranged at any side surface of the shell are switched on via a conducting wire. According to the portable data destroying machine, the structure is simple, data cleaning of storage equipment such as USB discs, SD cards, Micro SD storage equipment and mobile hard discs can be independently realized, the connection with a computer is not needed, the contents of the equipment can be deleted via the touch screen, the portable data destroying machine is provided with an AC100-240V double-authentication power supply so that the removability of the equipment is improved, the portable data destroying machine is more convenient in a usage process, and a portable handle is provided so that the moving of the data destroying machine is facilitated.

Patent RU2690781 (BELOUSOVA, VOROBEV, VLASOVA, GAIN, GORKAEV, PRONIN, SHADIEV) discloses an invention that relates to protection of confidential information from unauthorized access, namely to devices for destruction of electronic data media. Device for destruction of chip of memory microcircuit comprises sealed housing, in which working charge is installed, working charge activation element and initiating element containing conductive electrodes with inflammable filament bridge, wherein working charge and actuating element are made of pyrotechnic compositions, wherein actuation element is installed between data carrier and working charge. EFFECT: providing reliable prevention of access to an information carrier by means of emergency destruction of a chip of a memory microcircuit, while maintaining integrity of the electronic unit containing a data medium.4 cl, 3 dwg.

The prior art therefore shows that there is a need for a more effective storage box for USB flash drives sticks and memory devices which has a more secure method of secure storage, location tracking and destruction.

The present invention aims to provide an improved USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case, having a keypad locking method, a built in GPS tracker system and an electronic destruction module which electronically fries the USB flash drive upon receiving a text message command if the case is lost or stolen, supported by a low battery back-up system.

Summary of the invention

According to the present invention there is provided a USB flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case which is highly secure, water proof and dustproof. The case is generally of a squared or rectangular cuboid shape having a hinged opening section lid which can be locked and which is all constructed of strong materials such as aluminium and tungsten. To the frontal face of the case is a locking mechanism which is controlled via a keypad. The mechanism is housed in a squared section which stands slightly higher than the top of the case rim, when the opening section lid is open and its inner facing bolt delivery edge is precisely level with the outer frontal face of the case, as shown. To the frontal outer facing edge of the lid are three reinforced holes which align exactingly with three locking bolts currently retracted inside the lock mechanism housing, therefore when the lid is closed, said locking bolts are able to instantly extend forward from their horizontally retracted position and shoot transversely into the reinforced holes in the lid, locking the lid in place. A keypad is provided to unlock the mechanism and therefore retract the three bolts out of the corresponding holes in the frontal face edge of the lid, the user will have a secret pin code that they put into the keypad, in the known way.

The case also has a built in GPS tracker system to track the case if it is stolen and a geofence with a call home feature in event of the case being lost, mislaid or stolen. If the case is moved outside of geofence boundary it will call home to provide an alert. A coded text message can then be sent to a receiver unit inside the case to activate the destruction method of any USB memory stick flash devices inside the case, therefore; loss, mislaid or stolen events result in USB Flash drive electronic destruction thus ensuring protection of sensitive data loss.

The case has a rechargeable battery unit which is able to generate high voltages of up to 1,200 Volts for short periods using a small generator, electronically frying the USB stick flash drives being destroyed and any data stored on them made unreadable and unrecoverable. It also confirms the electronic destruction by text and sends a battery low warning by text enabling the secure case to destroy the USB flash drives when the battery is critically low. This feature will protect against the bad actor from simply waiting for the battery to fail before breaking into the case. The aforementioned non removable rechargeable battery is provided to stop bad actors from simply detaching it and it is encased inside the metal case which also has built in penetration sensors around the facing edges, base and lid that detect intrusion attempts and activates the electronic frying process by high voltage upon detection, this includes if any attempts to drill, break or access through the body of the case.

The case is used by simply plugging in multiple USB stick flash drives into the internal rows of flash drive openings found in the copper USB storage section surface under the lid when opened and then locking it, using the keypad.

If the case is lost or stolen, you can recover it using the GPS tracking feature and furthermore in the event it is not recoverable, you can send it a text from a smart phone or similar device to electronically fry the USB flash drives contained within it. If the USB secure storage, recovery and destruction case leaves the predefined boundary of the geofence, it results in the USB flash drives stored within it being destroyed by the electronic frying method. The brass USB storage section is isolated from the outer casing to ensure the outer casing does not also become live when actioned and conduct electricity outwardly.

A majority of USB flash drives are unencrypted and even encrypted USB flash drives can be hacked. Some USB flash drives self-wipe upon a number of failed password attempts, but even these USB flash drives can be hacked.

The penetration sensors, as aforementioned, are provided as a long printed conductive trace that goes back and forth across the sensors so that once it is punctured it will result in an open circuit (open switch) which triggers the actions.

In this respect, before explaining at least one embodiment of the invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and to the arrangements of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments and of being practiced and carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein are for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.

As such, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception, upon which this disclosure is based, may readily be utilized as a basis for the designing of other structures, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present invention. It is important, therefore, that the claims be regarded as including such equivalent constructions insofar as they do not depart from the spirit and scope of the present invention.

Further, the purpose of the foregoing abstract is to enable the Patent Office and the public generally, and especially the scientists, engineers and practitioners in the art who are not familiar with patent or legal terms or phraseology, to determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and essence of the technical disclosure of the application. The abstract is neither intended to define the invention of the application, which is measured by the claims, nor is it intended to be limiting as to the scope of the invention in any way.

It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case which has all the advantages of the prior art USB flash drive storage cases and none of the disadvantages.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a new USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case which may be easily and efficiently manufactured and marketed.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a new and improved USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case which is of durable and reliable construction.

An even further object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case which is susceptible of a low cost of manufacture with regard to both materials and labour, and which accordingly is then susceptible of low prices of sale to the consuming public, thereby making such a product available to the buying public.

Still yet another object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case which provides in the apparatuses and methods of the prior art some of the advantages thereof, while simultaneously overcoming some of the disadvantages normally associated therewith.

These together with other objects of the invention, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the invention, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages and the specific objects attained by its uses, reference should be had to the accompanying drawings and detailed descriptive matter in which there is illustrated preferred embodiments of the invention.

Brief description of figures

Figure 1 shows a dimensional view of the USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case.

Figure 2 shows a dimensional view of the USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case and its internal operating features.

Figure 3 shows a dimensional view of the closed USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case.

Detailed description of figures

A typical embodiment of the USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case device is shown in Figure 1. It comprises the case 1, which has a generally squared or rectangular cuboid shape having an elongated and covered hinge 17 enabling an opening section lid 2 and 9 which is opened and closed using a finger tab 3 with two closing rims 12 and 15 creating a waterproof and dustproof closure seal.

To the centre of the opening lid section 2 interior is a padded area 7 which encloses directly onto the top of the horizontally disposed USB storage section 8, seated into the upper face 16, which vertically stores the USB flash drives (not shown in this Figure) in flash drive openings 13 to hold them in place.

The case has a further lower section 10 which is of greater depth than the lid and safely houses the electrical and operating feature components within, having a single input for a battery charging point 18 located to the vertical facing side of the lower section.

The case opening section lid 2 is locked onto the lower section 10 by means of a locking mechanism keypad 11 to the frontal vertical face of the case lower section 10, which is controlled via a keypad and aligns and engages its inner facing bolt delivery edge 14 with three reinforced holes 5, 4, 6 in the frontal facing edge of the lid 2 when 2 and 10 are closed together, to be detailed further.

Figure 2 shows the locking mechanism 28 which is housed in a squared section which stands slightly higher than the top of the case rim 12A, when the opening section lid 2A is open and its inner facing bolt delivery edge 14 (shown in Figure 1) is precisely level with the outer frontal facing edge of the case 29, as shown. To the frontal outer facing edge of the lid 29 are three reinforced holes 4A, 5A, 6A which align exactingly with three locking shoot bolts 19, 20, 21 currently retracted inside the lock mechanism housing, therefore when the lid 2A is closed, said locking shoot bolts 19, 20, 21 are able to instantly extend forward when actioned from their horizontally retracted position and shoot transversely forward into the reinforced holes 4A, 5A, 6A in the outer facing edge of the lid 29, locking the lid 2A in place. A keypad 11A is provided to unlock the mechanism and therefore retract the three bolts out of the corresponding holes in the frontal face edge of the lid, the user will have a secret pin code that they put into the keypad in the known way.

The case also has a built in GPS tracker system and text sender 22 to track the case if it is stolen and a geofence with a call home feature in event of the case being lost, mislaid or stolen. As with known applications a virtual perimeter for a real-world geographic area is created and dynamically generated (as a radius around a point location) or matching any predefined set of boundaries. This use of a geofence is called geofencing, and this particular example of use involves a location aware device inside the case working off a location-based service (LBS) with the holder entering or exiting a geofence. This activity triggers an alert to the device's user as well as messaging to the geo-fence operator. This info, which could contain the location of the device, could be sent to a mobile telephone or an email account.

If the case is moved outside of geofence boundary it will call home to provide an alert. A coded text message can then be sent to a receiver unit inside the case to activate the destruction method of any USB memory stick flash drives 27 inside the case, therefore; loss, mislaid or stolen events result in USB Flash drive electronic destruction thus ensuring protection of sensitive data loss.

The case has a rechargeable battery unit 23 with battery charging point 18A disposed in the lower-case section, as shown, which is able to generate high voltages of up to 1,200 Volts for short periods using a small generator 24 electronically frying the USB stick flash drives 27 in the USB storage section 8A with electrical conductors 26 deploying the high voltage supply destroying any data stored on them made and making them unreadable and unrecoverable. It also confirms the electronic destruction by text and sends a battery low warning by text enabling the secure case to destroy the USB flash drives when the battery is critically low.

This feature will protect against the bad actor from simply waiting for the battery to fail before breaking into the case. The aforementioned non removable rechargeable battery 23 is provided to stop bad actors from simply detaching it and it is encased inside the metal case 1A which also has built in penetration sensors 25 that detect intrusion attempts and activates the electronic frying process by high voltage upon detection, this includes if any attempts to drill, break or access through the case.

Figure 3 shows the case 1 B closed.

Claims

Claims 1) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case comprising; a case with penetration sensors, GPS tracking and geofence technology which has an opening section lid which is locked onto a lower section by means of a locking bolt mechanism operated by a keypad, an hidden elongated hinge enabling the opening section lid to open and close onto the lower section, a padded area is provided on the inner side of the lid for closure onto a disposed USB flash drive storage and destruction section inside the case, the lower section houses the electrical and operating feature components, having a single input for a battery charging point located to the vertical facing side.
2) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 1 wherein a case is squared or a rectangular cuboid shape.
3) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 1 wherein a case is opened and closed using a finger tab.
4) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 1 wherein an opening section lid and lower section have closing rims which close together creating a waterproof and dustproof closure seal.
5) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 1 wherein a locking mechanism is located on the frontal vertical face of the lower section of the case.
6) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 1 wherein a locking mechanism is housed in a squared section which stands slightly higher than the top of the case rim.
7) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 1 wherein a slightly higher section of the locking mechanism contains horizontally arranged shoot bolts.
8) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 7 wherein a locking mechanism aligns and engages its inner facing shoot bolt delivery edge with three reinforced holes in the frontal facing edge of the lid, when the lid and lower section are closed together.
9) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 8 wherein the keypad is used to action the locking process wherein shoot bolts retracted inside the lock mechanism are able to instantly extended forward from their horizontally retracted position and shoot transversely forward into reinforced holes.
10) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim when the opening section lid is closed its inner facing bolt delivery edge is precisely level with the outer frontal facing edge of the case lid which align with the shoot bolts.
11) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 1 wherein a case has a built in GPS tracker system to track the case if it is stolen.
12) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 1 wherein a case has a built in geofence system with a call home feature in event of the case being lost, mislaid or stolen, with a virtual perimeter for a chosen geographic area is created and dynamically generated (as a radius around a point location) or matching any predefined set of boundaries.
13) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 12 wherein a further location aware device operates inside the case working off a location-based service (LBS) when the holder is entering or exiting a geofence, triggering an alert to the device's user as well as messaging the geofence operator with the location of the device sent to a mobile telephone or an email account.
14) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 13 wherein a coded text message is sent to a receiver unit inside the case to activate the destruction method of any USB memory stick flash drives stored inside the case, thus loss, mislaying or stolen events of the case result in USB Flash drive electronic destruction.
15) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 14 wherein a case has a rechargeable battery unit disposed in the lower-case section.
16) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 15 wherein a case has an internal power generator attached to a battery which is able to generate high voltages of up to 1,200 Volts for short periods.
17) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 16 wherein a small generator electronically fries the USB stick flash drives in the USB storage section with electrical conductors deploying the high voltage supply.
18) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 17 has a built-in penetration sensor that detects intrusion attempts and activates the electronic frying by high voltage upon detection.
19) A USB stick flash drive secure storage, recovery and destruction case according to claim 18 wherein the case uses a text sender to confirm the electronic destruction by text and sends a battery low warning by text enabling the secure case to destroy the USB flash drives when the battery is critically low.