IronKey today announced a USB stick that performs secure online banking with its own virtualized operating system and locked-down browser.

Aimed at enterprises for their online business banking, as well as at banks to offer to their corporate customers, the IronKey Trusted Access for Banking device plugs into a computer and is activated with a password. It also runs an on-board malware scan, and the browser goes directly to the bank's online banking site.

"What's cool about this also is that we use SSL VPN out to our servers, or the bank can terminate it at their own servers," says David Jevans, CEO of IronKey. "All content is encrypted through the SSL VPN .. and it has the ability to mask traffic so the malware can't see you're going to the Bank of America [for instance]. Nothing can inject malicious content into the stream or tamper with any content with a man-in-the middle attack."

DNS cache-poisoning attacks won't work with the tool, either, because it deploys its own secure DNS channel, Jevans says.

"There's a whole, new suite of banking Trojans aimed at corporate users," Jevans says. And recommendations that corporate banking customers run a dedicated computer for online banking only isn't realistic for all organizations, he says, so the IronKey Trusted Access for Banking device provides a more manageable alternative.

IronKey remotely manages the device via its online service, and it includes an RSA SecurID token for one-time passwords. Pricing is $200 per year or less; IronKey will begin shipping the devices at the end of March.

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