What is a Faraday Bag?

With the advent of technology wireless being used for your home internet, your car key and even the door to your house, we are more “remotely” connected than ever before.

Although usually a testament of scientific knowledge as with most things, there is always a risk and in the case of the modern day, it is from remote hacking, RFID card cloning and other technological cybersecurity risks.

Faraday Bags, named after the inventor of the Faraday cage block RF signals from both being sent and received to an electronic device such as a mobile phone, car key or laptop. A leading supplier is FaradayBag.com and they come in a range of sizes to shield different devices and can stop a cyber-attacks to your important digital device.

How does a Faraday Bag work?

Devices like smartphones connect to phone networks via wireless signals but also have other wireless connection capabilities as Bluetooth or wireless Wi-Fi networks such as the 802.11b/g/n standard. Even with the standard security features on a smart device, they can still be susceptible to being an attack from an outside source to alter, delete or even add evidence to the phone or another device.

Faraday Bags much like the Faraday cage is an enclosed, sealed unit which prevents signals from being sent and received thanks to the material the bag is made from. This is important in cases of seized devices where the data contained in it is used as evidence in court as the faraday bag will ensure this has not been tampered with.

What are Faraday Bags made of?

Faraday bags can be made up of a wide range of materials but the most common are multiple layers of various metallic layers. For example, you can find copper, aluminium and static dissipative polyethene.

A sleeve is thought to be the most practical solution but many of the materials that the team tested at Fardaybag.com tested offered inconsistent performance in shielding across a range of wireless frequencies. This is where the FaradayBag from Disklabs was born to offer consistent shielding performance across all frequencies in a reusable bag.

Unlike other bags that are on the market, a Disklabs Faraday Bag has a high specification of material combined with special threads during the manufacturing and sewing process to protect it from degrading the performance

What are Faraday Bags used for?

As mentioned previously, one of the main uses for Faraday Bags is protecting the integrity of information usually by law enforcement and government agencies.

This, however, is not the only uses with one more prominent applications being for car owners to protect themselves from the remote relay theft. Common with cars that use a keyless entry system, a small Faraday bag like the Car KeyShield can shield your keys to stop criminals trying to copy your key or use it to open your vehicle.

Other common uses can be from people known as “Preppers” that store devices in Faraday bags to protect themselves from hackers and unauthorised access but also from electromagnetic pulses from a man-made device or astrological event that can damage electronic equipment.

With our reliance on wireless technology growing and workplaces and homes relying on remote connectivity, it is becoming more important to protect devices that are seemingly always connected or looking for connections. Protect your smart devices from unknown remote attacks and look at our range of Faraday Bags to choose the right bag for your device.