They are tiny, smaller than a pack of gum, yet just one can hold a staggering amount of information. They are innocuous, inexpensive, and unlikely to raise red flags except in the securest of settings. And yet they can be surprisingly resilient, surviving accidents such as an unintended trip through a washing machine.

They are flash drives and, even in our astonishing age of computers, the promise they exhibit is remarkable. Those who once had to use their chin to balance a briefcase on top of a cardboard box of documents while negotiating a flight of stairs can now transfer the same data from one computer to another with a device that many use as a keychain, a tactic known as a "sneakernet."

Few would argue their merit, but they can be catastrophic to a company's security. They are easy to steal, easy to steal with, and easy to misplace (Stasiukonis, 2006). These little devices have caused huge messes, sometimes related to private employee information.

There's the case of the flash drive that contained 3,000 sensitive files of Idaho National Guard personnel and was stolen from a car (James, 2007). Hundreds of flash drives - some with sensitive military information including data on U.S. soldiers, confidential informants and a manual describing pain techniques - were found for sale at the bazaar outside the Air Force Base in Bagram, Afghanistan (Watson, 2006)...

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