General questions

The issue might be caused by power-saving settings on your Mac. Please see below and make the appropriate changes to your Mac which will stop the iStorage device from randomly disconnecting and locking. (Please note: The steps below are based on the latest Sonoma MacOS.  The settings may differ depending on what version of macOS you are using)

Please ensure to safely shut down the Mac and restart it prior to following the below steps.

1. Please connect and unlock your iStorage device (solid green LED indicates that the drive is unlocked)
2. Go to System Settings by clicking the Apple icon in the top left corner.
3. Within the System Settings, click Battery and click on Options as shown in the screenshot below.

4. Within Options, change the setting for “Put hard disks to sleep when possible” from Always to Never as shown in the screenshot below.

Our range of encrypted flash drives incorporate a built-in rechargeable battery in order to make it easy to enter the PIN on the device before connecting to the host/computer. The battery can be recharged simply by plugging it into a powered USB port on your PC/Mac. The flashing blue LED indicates that the flash drive is being charged.

In the unlikely event that the battery should completely malfunction, your iStorage flash drive can still be unlocked and your data can be accessed by connecting to a powered USB port and entering your unique user or admin PIN.

Please note: The internal battery has no adverse effect on the data stored and the encryption process. Even if the battery is fully discharged or malfunctions, no data will be lost and the drive can still be used.

There are two reasons why your iStorage device is not accepting your PIN:

1. The PIN is incorrect. (Please note: If you have forgotten your unique user or admin PIN, iStorage has no backdoors to PINs and cannot help you access your drive)
2. The PIN is being entered too quickly.

The latter one is a common problem. As the user grows more comfortable with our products, they enter the PIN at a faster pace. iStorage suggests entering the PIN slowly to allow the products to register each key pressed.

Three solid LED lights mean that you have triggered the brute force defence mechanism and the keypad is locked to prevent any further attempts.

Please follow the steps outlined in the product user manual to gain access to 5 additional, final attempts. User manuals for all iStorage products can be found here: https://istorage-uk.com/product-documentation/.

The cloudAshur client app is compatible with Windows (7 and above) and MacOS with Intel architecture (M1 & M2 Apple devices are currently under development).

The cloudAshur Remote management console is compatible with Windows 7 and above.

The cloudAshur KeyWriter application is compatible with Windows 7 and above.

iStorage products can be whitelisted on corporate networks by using the VID/PID of the iStorage drive required.

VID (Vendor ID) and PID (Product ID) are unique identifiers that are assigned to each USB device by its manufacturer. In addition to VID/PID information, all iStorage products have a unique device instance, which is a 16-character number that is completely unique to each iStorage product.

This means that if an iStorage device needs to be added to an “Allowed” device list or “Whitelist”, each individual iStorage product can be added using its unique device instance. By adding each iStorage product to the “Allowed” list, device control policies can be enforced without blocking authorised iStorage products. If an unknown USB drive is used that is not corporately issued, it will be blocked like any other unauthorised device. This enables organisations to implement device control measures that restrict the use of unauthorised devices while allowing authorised iStorage products to be used securely.

BadUSB is a theoretical exploit that was presented by SR Labs at the Black Hat conference in August 2014. SR Labs demonstrated a vulnerability in one USB device that allowed malicious code to be programmed into the USB controller through a firmware update process.

The attack described is very sophisticated and, in the case of iStorage products, would require advanced knowledge of our USB controller, a leaked version of our firmware, the programming tool to update our controller, the password used for our programming tool and an in-depth understanding of the device’s functionality.

According to SR Labs, the failsafe method to eliminate this threat is to simply disable the ability to update the controller’s firmware. Many of iStorage devices shipping today, including all our USB 3.0 security products, already have the firmware locked which prevents field updates to the USB controller.

As a continuous improvement, iStorage is locking down the firmware on all USB controllers used in iStorage devices to safeguard against this vulnerability. We recommend checking our website periodically for notices regarding BadUSB and Security Updates.