How soon will USB thumb drives be recalled to service with the US military, following the ban in November 2008?  That’s the question put by Defense News, the leading weekly magazine for defense decision makers worldwide in its recent issue.

In an article looking at the issue of USB security – to which SanDisk’s Enterprise Division contributed – the reporter finds that the ban has proven disruptive to military personnel at all levels.

Equipment maintenance teams would load digital repair manuals into thumb drives and carry thousands of pages of technical data in their pockets.  Pilots would plan missions on computers, then transfer plans to their aircraft computers by memory stick.  And all types of data — briefings, videos, maps, documents and so on — was stored, shared and transferred between PCs using these drives.

They proved themselves capable of surviving dust, water and temperature extremes in Iraq and Afghanistan, with one observer saying they were “GI proof”.

When thumb drives are reintroduced, new security safeguards are likely to include USB Port controls, mandatory encryption on thumb drives, and automatic scanning for malware.  These last two are key features of the SanDisk Cruzer Enterprise range.

A date for the reintroduction of USB pen drives is not yet set, but observers believe it will happen because of the drives’ sheer convenience.

The full article is here.