Designed to completely meet NIST FIPS 140-2 Level 3 requirements meaning that the entire devices Hard drive, electronics, external fasteners, even the enclosure itself–are included within this elevated FIPS Validation boundary. Milled from a solid block of aircraft-grade 6061 aluminum alloy, the enclosure also features snap-off uni-directional security fasteners and a membrane-style keypad. Inside, all data is encrypted on the fly as it's being written to the drive using AES-XTS 256-bit hardware encryption, protecting your data even if the hard drive is extracted from its enclosure. The Aegis Fortress L3 is ready to use Right Out of the box–no software, drivers, or updates. Completely cross-platform compatible, the L3 excels on any PC, Mac, Linux, or mass storage compliant system with a powered USB port. Like all Apricorn secure drives, The L3 features forced enrollment which fixes a common security vulnerability prevalent in other manufacturers’ encrypted drives by eliminating factory-preset default pins. With forced enrollment, the Admin must first establish a pin before the device can be used. All pin entries are performed on the device's keypad making it compatible with systems without keyboards and shares no security parameters with its host computer. The L3 has two Read-Only modes: perfect for accessing data on the drive in a public setting to protect against USB viruses and ideal for applications that require data to be preserved in its original, unaltered state–can’t be overwritten or modified. Brute force Defense: after a predetermined number of consecutive incorrect pin entries, The L3 will conclude that it is under Brute force attack and will perform a crypto-erase – deleting the encryption key which will render all of the drive's data useless. Configurable: create custom profiles and mass configure multiple Aegis devices at once with Apricorn's Aegis Configurator (sold separately).