Google Project Vault Puts Mobile Security on a microSD Card

Google (GOOG) aims to take the security of your mobile data out of the hands of device manufacturers and into a microSD card that will act as someone’s own personal data vault.

Called exactly that—Project Vault—the company unveiled its new technology for mobile security in San Francisco recently at its I/O developer conference, according to numerous public reports.

Project Vault aims to put people’s sensitive mobile data into a microSD card—seen as a regular storage device with a standard file system by its host—that will act as a “digital mobile safe” that puts “big security” in a “small package,” said Regina Dugan, the head of Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group, at the conference, according to one published report on CNET.com. Dugan’s group is the one overseeing the project.

Indeed, as more mobile devices are being used to access corporate data, the spotlight is turning to mobile security, and numerous industry players are taking their own approach to securing data on devices.

Putting data in device components—as Google is doing with Project Vault—seems to be one option that also liberates security from being placed solely in user device authentication. Chip vendor AMD (AMD), too, recently showed its support for putting security in device components by partnering with a U.K.-based startup called ExactTrak to include its Security Guardian USB key technology in its next generation of processors.

Google is taking a slightly different approach with Project Vault. The technology itself will be a secure computer featuring 4GB of storage for all the personal information of the owner of a device, with the idea that it will be kept safe on the card.

The Vault will have encryption capabilities and also provide an extra layer of authentication to ensure only the owner of the device can access the data, according to the report. The microSD card also will include a near-field communication (NFC) chip for communicating with other devices, according to the CNET report.

Also key to the technology is the fact that it will be device agnostic, as it can be recognized by any mobile operating system, including Google’s own Android, Windows and Apple’s OS X. However, all the software will be run off the microSD card, according to Google.

Google has released an open source developer kit for Project Vault so developers can start working with the technology. It’s also working on its own enterprise-ready product that is already being tested internally at Google, with the idea being if the technology is good enough for the enterprise, it can also be adapted for the commercial market in the future.