Veracrypt – Installing, Setting Up, and Using Encrypted Data Storage
By John Jacob Schmidt, Radio Free Redoubt
First off… it’s FREE and open source
In many countries today, such as Afghanistan, China, Pakistan, Iran, and elsewhere, simply getting caught with an electronic version of the Bible can get you and/or your family and friends arrested, tortured, or killed.
Not all information is a matter of life or death. There are legal documents (such as your will), banking information, family medical information, etc which you simply don’t want hackers, thieves, or snooping government entities to have access to.
Veracrypt is a cross-platform application which allows:
- Creation of encrypted storage vaults (partitioned volumes) on your hard drive or on portable storage (such as thumb drives)
- Can encrypt entire drives (thumb drives, external hard drives, etc.)
- Can encrypt your whole operating system (later, after you’ve become familiar with using Veracrypt)
- Encrypted volumes can be transferable across the internet or handed off using portable drives
From the Veracrypt Website Main Page:
VeraCrypt is a free open source disk encryption software for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux. Brought to you by IDRIX (https://www.idrix.fr) and based on TrueCrypt 7.1a.
VeraCrypt main features:
- Creates a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk.
- Encrypts an entire partition or storage device such as USB flash drive or hard drive.
- Encrypts a partition or drive where Windows is installed (pre-boot authentication).
- Encryption is automatic, real-time(on-the-fly) and transparent.
- Parallelization and pipelining allow data to be read and written as fast as if the drive was not encrypted.
- Encryption can be hardware-accelerated on modern processors.
- Provides plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password: Hidden volume (steganography) and hidden operating system.
- More information about the features of VeraCrypt may be found in the documentation
These excellent tutorials will walk you through downloading, setting up, and using most (if not all) the features included in the Veracrypt software program:
Download it and practice setting up an encrypted volume on a thumb drive today!
Then, lean how to create a hidden volume (a volume within a volume — the password you enter determines which of the two volumes will open). Here’s a tutorial:
NOTE: The author does not mention, the first file (volume) you create must be larger than the next one (hidden volume) you intend to create inside of the first volume. Example… If you intend to create another (hidden) volume size (let’s say), 3 gigabytes, then create a 5 gigabyte volume first. If you have 5GB of ‘TOP-secret’ data, then make your first volume (folder) 6 or 7 GB, so the 5GB volume will fit, and still leave room in the first volume for ‘Not-so-secret’ data.
Another great posting, with step-by-step download and setup instructions on Windows (ptooey!) is at:
Related: 2021 Security Series (Part 1): Setting up TAILS Portable Secure Operating System
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