Review: SecuriKey Personal Edition

The SecuriKey Personal Edition is a single-user solution providing secure access to your workstation.

It achieves this by augmenting the existing password protection with a plug-in USB token, thus providing two-factor authentication.

The presentation of this product is excellent, with an attractive aluminum presentation case containing the installation CD, a 'get started' guide and two USB tokens. The help file is comprehensive and logical, displaying screen shots to guide the user through every major operation.

Ironically, the Personal Edition was better at this than the Professional Edition, which expects more from whoever is installing it.

With the Personal Edition, installation was straightforward and fast, prompting the user to plug in the USB token at the appropriate point and enter a name for the resulting profile. During installation, the user may choose from locking the computer, putting it to sleep, logging off the user or shutting down when the token is removed.

When installed, a useful SecuriKey Protection Manager utility provides various functions from individual file protection, activating the fundamental key functionality, setting up profiles and viewing an audit trail. There is even a diagnostic tab which checks your setup.

The administrator may set up various 'guest' profiles which may or may not require a USB token in order to log on to the computer.

Together with the ability to protect individual files, this provides useful flexibility for instances where a workstation may be shared, but the primary user wishes to maintain a useful level of security over their own data.

This is all nicely presented in a logical and intuitive manner which creates easy administration, a critical factor for stand alone workstation implementations where the typical user wants good security, but does not want to be over-burdened with technicalities.

For:

Simplicity of operation.

Very little.

A well-conceived and well presented product.