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File and Volume Encryption Made Easy PDF Print E-mail
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ImageRecently, the Transportation Security Administration lost a computer hard drive containing Social Security numbers, bank data and payroll information for about 100,000 employee records. Authorities realized Thursday the hard drive was missing from a controlled area at TSA headquarters. Being lost/stolen from a secure area goes to show you that you can never be too careful with your sensitive data.

How could this have been prevented? No matter how careful you are and what kind of security measures you take, a determined thief can find a way to get what they want. If the TSA hard drive had been encrypted, the theft would not have had even a fraction of the impact that it has. The use of Truecrypt would've been the perfect solution!

TrueCrypt is an Open Source software system for establishing and maintaining an on-the-fly-encrypted volume (data storage device). On-the-fly encryption means that data are automatically encrypted or decrypted right before they are loaded or saved, without any user intervention. No data stored on an encrypted volume can be read (decrypted) without using the correct password/keyfile(s) or correct encryption keys. Entire file system is encrypted (e.g.., file names, folder names, contents of every file, free space, meta data, etc).

Despite its sophistication, Truecrypt is incredibly easy to use. Since most people use CD-R's to back up data, we'll show you how to create an encrypted volume that will fit on a CD.

You'll need to download and install:
Truecrypt


To create a new encrypted volume, click Create Volume.

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To create a standard volume click next. (More info about hidden volumes available on the Truecrypt Website)

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Select the new file name and click next.

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If you'd like a different encryption algorithm select it or use the default AES and click next.

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We choose 650MB for a large encrypted volume to burn to a CD.

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Choose a password. (More info about key files available on the Truecrypt Website)

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You can choose the FAT or NTFS to format your new Truecrypt Volume. Click Format.

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Your volume is created. Click Next.

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To mount and use your new encrypted volume, click "Select File..."

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Our volume was named "new" Click to open.

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Click mount. Note the highlighted drive above. It will be mounted as H:

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Enter the password you used to create the volume.

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You can see that it's mounted as the H: drive

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Go to my computer and open the H: drive. That is your encrypted volume. It will work just like another drive on your computer making it easy to copy, move or delete files.

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Did you find this helpful? Let us know!

 
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