Citrix admins - what USB encryption sticks do you use ?

Snow-Munki · 2 Dec 2009 at 15:29

Hi,

where I work everyone uses citrix full desktop to run Outlook, Word and all other apps perfectly fine.

On top of that we use a small tool which runs localled called DynamicUSB so they can access theie normal USB sticks, and everything works as designed.

However I am now looking into getting encrypted USB sticks and just wondering if you guys have come across any that work ? All the sticks I have seen require an exe to be run to unlock a secure partition. It is this part Citrix does not like,

So far the only one I have come across is Blockmaster's SafeStick. Just want to make sure I am not missing a trick.

Thanks,

Snow-Munki · 9 Apr 2010 at 09:39

anyone got any other ideas ? Still looking.

iaind · 9 Apr 2010 at 10:43

I've had this dilemma - and, in short, you're pretty stuffed.

Thin clients forward mapped drives by mounting it locally and presenting it as a network drive within the session. If your clients are windows based then you could run the executable locally, which would "unlock" the drive and the newly created drive would be mounted and forwarded to the session. You wont be able to run it in session, as the executables need direct access to the hardware.

The exception to this is using something like Wyse TCX or Citrix HDX to fully forward the USB device, although these are only supported/reccomended in virtual desktop environments as it would make the USB stick appear to be connected to the server directly, thus appearing in all sessions.

The other alternative is software encryption, you would run the software on the server to either create an encrypted virtual volume (something like TrueCrypt will do this) or encrypt individual files (something like AxCrypt is good here). This doesn't, however, prevent files from being transferred unencrypted - it merely gives the user the ability to encrypt them.

I asked a similar question a while back and the only options were expensive and didnt tick all the boxes

Snow-Munki · 9 Apr 2010 at 11:13

thanks very much, pretty much sums it up.