FOUNTAIN VALLEY, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 14, 2026--
From carrying financial documents to a client meeting, transferring work files between devices, backing up family records, or storing personal documents while traveling, USB drives offer a convenient way to keep important information close at hand. However, their portability also means they can be easily lost, stolen, or connected to an untrusted computer. When a drive containing sensitive information falls into the wrong hands, encryption can help ensure the data remains unreadable without proper authentication.
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Kingston Technology, a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, today shares key considerations for choosing the right encrypted drive for your needs, helping individuals and organizations better protect sensitive information as portable data becomes increasingly common in everyday life.
Four Essentials When Choosing an Encrypted Drive
While encryption is critical to keeping sensitive data secure on the move, not every drive labeled “encrypted” offers the same level of protection. Kingston therefore outlines four essential criteria to help users make a more informed choice:
Matching the Right Drive to Each Use Case
The right encrypted drive ultimately depends on what information is being protected, how the drive will be used, and the level of security and compliance required. A student carrying coursework and personal records may have very different requirements from a healthcare organization transferring sensitive information or a business creating an offline backup.
With over two decades of leadership in hardware-encrypted storage, Kingston offers its award-winning Kingston IronKey™ portfolio of secure drives, designed to protect data across a wide range of users and applications, from everyday personal files to sensitive professional information and business-critical data.
“Portable storage makes it easy to move important information wherever it is needed, but that convenience should not come at the expense of security,” said Kingston. “Kingston’s long-standing commitment to data protection is built on helping users make informed security decisions. This begins with understanding the value and sensitivity of their data, then matching those needs with the right level of hardware-based security, usability, and compliance.”
As more information moves beyond traditional office environments, protecting portable data should be considered an essential part of a broader data security strategy. Backed by internationally recognized security certifications including NIST FIPS 140-3 Level 3 validation, TAA compliance, FIPS 197 certification, and industry awards, Kingston IronKey continues to provide trusted data protection solutions for individuals, enterprises, and highly regulated industries.
For more information, visit kingston.com/ironkey.
About Kingston Digital, Inc.
From big data to IoT devices, including laptops, PCs, and wearable technology, Kingston Technology is dedicated to delivering top-tier product solutions, service, and support. Trusted by leading PC manufacturers and global cloud providers, we value our long-term partnerships that help us evolve and innovate. We ensure every solution meets the highest standards by prioritizing quality and customer care. At every step, we listen, learn, and engage with our customers and partners to deliver solutions that make a lasting impact. To learn more about Kingston Technology and our “Built on Commitment” vision, visit kingston.com.
Editor’s Note: For additional information or evaluation units, please contact PR Team, Kingston Technology Company, Inc. 17600 Newhope Street, Fountain Valley, CA USA 92708, 714-435-2600 (Voice). Press images can be found in Kingston’s press room kingston.com/company/press/
Kingston and the Kingston logo are registered trademarks of Kingston Technology Corporation. IronKey is a registered trademark of Kingston Digital, Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
With award-winning Kingston IronKey drives, you can trust your data is protected from everyday personal files to business-critical data.
ARAPAHOE, Wyo. (AP) — Every Sunday morning on the Wind River Reservation, congregants gather at Foundations for Nations Church to pray while protesters outside do the same.
The two rituals have unfolded in parallel since the Christian church's pastor, Sarah Lucas, preached a sermon condemning Arapaho ceremonial ways.
The Northern Arapaho and Eastern Shoshone Tribes that share the reservation have made clear that Lucas is no longer welcome. Lucas, who is not Native American but owns the land under her church, says she isn't going anywhere. The standoff tests the boundaries of religious freedom and the right of a tribal nation to govern according to its own values and protocols.
The conflict stems from a video that circulated in July as Arapaho people surfaced from their weeklong sundance ceremony. In it, Lucas called that cornerstone of Arapaho spiritual life “idol worship.”
“Jesus is the chain breaker. He is the only God that we should be praying to,” Lucas said.
Lucas says her words reflect her interpretation of the Bible and are constitutionally protected. Many Arapaho people say she took aim at something central to who they are, reopening wounds from a not-so-distant era of religious assimilation and abuse.
With the smell of coffee and sweetgrass swirling, regular Sunday demonstrators were recently joined by activists from the American Indian Movement and Arapaho Chairman Keenan Groesbeck as they marched past ranchland and scattered homes toward the church.
“We brought in our ceremonial elders. We heard them loud and clear,” said Groesbeck. “They don’t want them here no more.”
The sundance marks a time of connection, offering and collective renewal. As Arapaho people closed this year's ceremony and welcomed a new year according to their traditions, Lucas and her smaller-than-usual congregation prayed for them.
“You have generations, centuries of people doing this offering, going in and making vows to change,” Lucas said. “Father God, we see no fruit.”
Many Arapahos were stunned to hear an outsider not only disparage the ceremony but talk about closely held details that aren't meant to be discussed openly.
Big Wind Carpenter, who was among the protesters, said Lucas couldn't have chosen a more painful target.
“There's nothing I could say to make non-Arapahos understand,” Carpenter said.
Lucas said she regrets her sharp delivery captured in clips that went viral but not the message itself. Since founding her church nine years ago, she said she has had “hard conversations” urging Native congregants to renounce sundance, sweat lodges and burning cedar during prayer, traditions she equates to idolatry.
“The Bible makes it very clear to only worship one God,” Lucas said.
Some members of her mixed Native and white congregation were unaware of her stance. Lucas said Sunday turnout is down half from 150. Some weeks, the protest crowd has rivaled church attendance.
Arapaho congregant Tearany Black, who considers Lucas a stand-in parent, said she agrees Native Christians should turn away from ceremony but found the tone of the sermon racist.
“She cares for our people,” said Black. “I just don’t think she understands where we’re coming from.”
DJ Gardner grew up praying in sweat lodges and reading the Bible. He joined Lucas' congregation last year and didn't anticipate being asked to choose.
“I thought they accepted us,” Gardner said. “In my view, why else would you be on a reservation?”
The 28-year-old, who has walked away from Foundations for Nations, associates Lucas' rhetoric with assimilationist boarding schools like the one his grandfather survived.
In part to repair that dark history, the Episcopal and Catholic missions that have been active on Wind River since the late 1800s now embrace ceremonial practices.
“It’s an irony of colonialism, the degree to which Native people have remade Christianity according to their own values,” said Michael McNally, a professor of religious studies at Carleton College in Minnesota.
Lucas interprets the Bible differently.
“I don't believe you can have mixture,” she said.
Mary Rose Goggles was struggling with the costs of raising her grandchildren in 2017 when Lucas knocked on her door and warmly invited her to join her new church.
Goggles, who practices Arapaho ceremonial ways but dabbles in Christianity, liked the worship band and activities that kept her grandchildren busy. As Foundations for Nations grew, she visited its food bank, clothing giveaways and events like a fall harvest festival.
“It was good to see the kids enjoying themselves. It was good to see my relations getting help,” Goggles said.
Lucas built relationships on Wind River by filling gaps. Her church offers free after-school and summer day camps. Visiting missionaries fill tribal members’ gas tanks and replace their sagging roofs.
Foundations for Nations' website solicits outside donations to “revive, raise up and restore” Wind River, listing grim statistics about addiction, sexual assault and unemployment. The Associated Press found those numbers were pulled from national studies not specific to the reservation or could not be traced to a verifiable source.
A page asking donors to “sponsor” a child in exchange for photos and letters was recently removed.
Goggles left Foundations for Nations several years ago after moving away but thought warmly of the church until seeing Lucas' sermon, which she said left her “heartbroken.”
Jenea Mandan has cycled through feelings of anger and shame about sending her children to the church's summer camp. An Arapaho traditionalist, Mandan had misgivings about the Christian program but needed childcare help.
“At that time I was a single mom, I was in a low-income situation,” Mandan said. “It feels like they took advantage of that.”
Lucas believes God called her to Wind River. But she deliberately built her church on private property within the reservation's boundaries rather than tribal land where, she said, the tribes would effectively be her landlords.
Foundations for Nations is located amid a patchwork of federal, tribal and private property — the legacy of 19th century federal policies designed to eliminate tribes by breaking up collective land bases.
“That era has cascading effects that are devastating for tribal sovereignty,” said Jessica Shoemaker, a professor at the University of Nebraska College of Law.
Shoemaker said tribes have broad civil authority over non-Natives on tribal land, including to banish them. But jurisdiction over private property within reservations is litigated case-by-case.
Lucas and her attorneys with the Liberty Counsel, a conservative Christian legal organization, assert that her ownership of the property shields her from banishment.
In July, the Arapaho and Shoshone councils passed ordinances requiring religious groups to seek their approval before operating on Wind River.
“That’s the law of the land on our reservation,” said Groesbeck.
That has forced Foundations for Nations to suspend youth programming since it is now prohibited from picking up and dropping off children on the reservation.
In an Aug. 31 memo, the Arapaho council acknowledged that “jurisdictional limits” likely prevent it from regulating church activity on private land. And any tribal court enforcement of those ordinances could face federal review, where there's a high bar for proving non-Native conduct threatens tribal well-being.
Meanwhile, the 21,000 square-foot (1,950 square-meter), steel-sided building that houses Foundations for Nations’ sanctuary, community spaces and indoor playground has been unusually quiet. Construction on a neighboring youth center continues.
“God would not have us build this and provided all of it to empty it out,” Lucas said.
Gardner has returned to the Catholic church of his childhood, where Arapaho geometric motifs adorn the sanctuary and he is welcome to burn cedar.
He has been praying for guidance on forgiveness.
This story is published through the Global Indigenous Reporting Network at The Associated Press.
A truck passes through the Wind River Reservation on its way to Riverton, Wyo., on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
The sun shines on a hay field on the Wind River Reservation near Riverton, Wyo., on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Native American imagery is displayed on the ceiling of the St. Stephens Indian Mission Catholic church in Arapahoe, Wyo., on Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
The frame of a teepee is displayed outside the St. Stephens Indian Mission Catholic church in Arapahoe, Wyo., on Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Jaelynn Duran, left, and Abigail Whiteman play in front of a mural at a gas station on the Wind River Reservation near Riverton, Wyo., on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Raphael C'Hair stands amid protesters near the Foundations for Nations church in Arapahoe, Wyo., on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
The general view of Foundations for Nations church is seen in Arapahoe, Wyo., on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Danelle Kawasaki, a spokeswoman for the Montana American Indian Movement, protests near the Foundations for Nations church in Arapahoe, Wyo., on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Sarah Lucas, pastor of the Foundations for Nations church, is interviewed in Arapahoe, Wyo., on Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Native American imagery is displayed at the St. Stephens Indian Mission Catholic church in Arapahoe, Wyo., on Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
Pastor Sarah Lucas sits inside the Foundations for Nations church in Arapahoe, Wyo., on Monday, Aug. 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Savannah Peters)
Kolten Lawrence protests near the Foundations for Nations church in Arapahoe, Wyo., on Sunday, Aug. 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Peipert)
