News & Insights
News, articles & field notes.
What we're learning about secure media, field tools and monitoring, and how it helps you.
News
Announcements and what’s new at Hiscox Media.
We are Cyber Essentials certified. Here is what that checks.
Hiscox Media has passed the UK government's Cyber Essentials assessment. What the scheme tests, what we had to show, and what it means when you hand us your media.
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A new hiscox.biz, and the ASTRID range, with prices
We've rebuilt our website around the problems you bring us, and put the ASTRID field-tool range and its subscriptions on the page with real prices. Here's what's new.
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Practical guides and explainers on secure media, cost and compliance.
What a memory card knows about itself, and why we are asking its makers for the key
Industrial memory cards, and some high-endurance consumer cards, count their own wear. We decode those counters so a card's health can be read in the field. Here is what we can read today, what we cannot, and a specific request to the card and controller makers.
Read → The card reader that fits in a pocket
A first look at ASTRID Nano: a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W, a card slot and an e-paper panel that shows what a memory card is, how worn it is, and a signed QR code that opens the card's passport.
Read →What certified data destruction means for memory cards
The three levels in NIST 800-88, what a certificate has to contain to be worth anything, why the card's own serial number matters, and which cards can and cannot be certified.
Read →How to tell if an SD card is fake
The label says 1 TB, V60 and A2. The chip inside says otherwise. What a card's own registers reveal, how to test the real capacity, and what we found in five cards bought online.
Read →Can data be recovered from a formatted SD card? Yes, and here is how much
Two second-hand cards that looked empty gave up over 115,000 files to a free tool in minutes. What formatting actually does, how recovery works, and what that means for anyone reselling or disposing of cards.
Read →Industrial SD card recertification: what it is and when it pays
Industrial cards carry their own wear counters. Read them, verify the card, erase it, and put it back into service with a certificate at a fraction of the price of a new one. What can be read, from which makers, and where the numbers come from.
Read →How to securely erase an SD card, and prove it
A quick format leaves everything behind. Here is how to overwrite a card and check it, on a Mac, Windows or Linux, what a home wipe can and cannot claim, and when to send cards to us instead.
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The Raspberry Pi, from the bedroom to the factory floor
How a computer built to get children programming became the board inside thousands of commercial products, and why the Compute Module changes how those products should be provisioned and serviced.
Read →Are you sitting on a gold mine?
Memory prices are up, supply is tight, and the forecasts say it stays that way for years. The box of used cards in your stores may be worth more than you think.
Read →What NIST 800-88 actually means, in plain English
The standard behind every erasure certificate we issue, explained without the jargon: the three levels, why a format is not one of them, and why memory cards need the middle one.
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A £30 card, a £1,000 visit: the real cost of a failure in the field
You can't know exactly when a memory card will fail. But before you send an engineer out, or trust a card that's already in the field, you can know whether it's healthy right now. That's the gap our tools close.
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The footage you forgot about: wiping cards, GDPR and personal data
A memory card that's held CCTV or dashcam footage holds personal data. Disposing of it with that data recoverable is a breach. Here's how to do it properly.
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The rising cost of storage media, and how to spend less on it
Flash storage isn't as cheap as it used to be, and a lot of usable media gets thrown away. Here's where the waste hides and how to cut your media bill.
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How we build our tools, and what we’re learning in the field.
Devices you can send into the field, and trust
When a monitoring device leaves for a customer site, it's on its own. That's exactly when its security has to hold. Here's how ours is built for the field.
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Every card has a history, we're building the record
Modern memory cards keep a detailed account of their own lives. We read it, and we're building a database that tells you which card is right for the job.
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