The increasing usage of thumb drives and Smartphones in the office is raising concern among IT experts. Thumb drives, also known as USB drives, USB flash drives or memory sticks, are easy to carry and may pose a threat if sensitive company information is stored in them. Smartphones can also carry huge amounts of data that the company may not control. A problem with the thumb drives is that administrators may not know that employees are using them to store company-related data. However, since it is seems impractical for companies to ban the use of thumb drives and Smartphones in the office, it would be advisable for them to provide encrypted drives to employees. Drives that are not issued by the company may thus be barred. Another viable solution would be CodeRed's Airstop to guard company data by managing the communications adapters and storage devices on office desktops and mobile equipment. Security issues are a major consideration in terms of risk management. In the case of Chicago, Illinois-based UHY Advisors, a technology infrastructure is being built to consolidate the six firms that merged to form the new company. The company benefited from eVault, a web-based application that helped them in the area of file backups. The issue of security related to portable storage devices is expected to continue to escalate in the coming years. It is predicted that by 2010 or 2011, almost all of the devices would be encrypted.