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USB Raptor – turn any USB flash drive into a secure computer lock key for your laptop or desktop PC [Freeware]

usbraptor

Carrying around a fancy laptop is all well and good, but hands up any of you who are a little bit paranoid about leaving your portable in a taxi, or on a train or at a party after work? Yeah, it happens, and when it does, it’s a nasty pit of the stomach thing. But what if you could lock the contents of your machine against unauthorized access, using nothing more than any old USB drive you have in your drawer? Cool eh?

USB Raptor is a clever bit of free software which will turn any USB drive into a computer lock key. All you have to do is download the program onto your Windows computer, run the installation, set up a default password and insert a USB drive into one of your spare slots. Then just click the Create a k3y file button.

usbraptor1

Immediately the program will write a special lock/unlock token onto the USB drive, and when you tick the Enable USB Raptor box, you’re good to go. Now if you unplug the USB drive the whole computer will shut down to a lock screen, and stay that way until you either insert the USB key again or enter in a password (if you’ve set the password option).

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The great thing about the software is how easy it is to get up and running, a mere minute or two is all it takes, and you can have your very own personal security token to lock down your machine. Without the token people can’t access your data, unless they’re geek enough to strip down the machine and start doing some hard drive forensics, or they’re cracker enough to break the lock with black hat tools.

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There are a bunch of options you can set up as well, including giving yourself a 5 second grace period after inserting the USB key before the lockdown happens, and muting the PC when it locks (great for shutting off sound instantly by just whipping out the key). You can also use a single USB drive to lock and unlock multiple computers, and if you use the option to disable password access, you’ll effectively have total control over those machines unless the key is inserted. Buwahahahaha…!

All in all, an excellent tool. At an unbeatable price!

3 Comments

  • Does anyone know of any serious security review of this software? I mean, does it really provide a significant level of security or is it just for keeping your little nephew off your laptop?

    • Definitely not good enough to keep determined people from your data. So yes, just your nephew. It also doesn’t encrypt the hard drive, so if someone can bypass the lock, the data will be freely visible.

  • What happens after a reboot? (Press the power button for 6 seconds or more to force a power off).

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