An Israeli start-up has put a Linux computer on a USB stick to act as a security system for notebook PCs and expects other applications to come.

The Yoggie Pico uses a 520MHz StrongArm processor from Marvell running the full Linux6.2 operating system to provide 13 security applications such as anti-virus, firewall and anti-phishing to notebooks.

All the network traffic runs from the modem or wireless LAN through the USB2.0 stick, using a DMA engine in the PC rather than the CPU and if it is unplugged the network connection is lost.

It could be used for other applications. “Once you start to do something like this it is so intriguing so you can expect other applications in the future,” said Shlomo Toubol, founder and chief executive of Yoggie Security Systems.

“The bottleneck is always the network and not the PCI bus or the USB, and that’s why there is no degradation in performance,” said Toubol. The signatures and rules are updated automatically by the stick every five minutes.

The operating system is kept secure in a protected flash and loaded into another flash memory to execute to prevent hacking. Three of the applications are bought in, including the anti-virus with regular virus signature updates, while the others have been developed in-house or are open source, said Toubol.

The company is about to appoint distributors in the UK for both consumer and enterprise applications.

For companies, the USB stick can also be used to prevent access to websites and to prevent the PC being used without the stick, but there is password protection so the PC could be used in an emergency.