Secure your Secrets with VeraCrypt
YOU’LL NEED THIS
VERACRYPT https://veracrypt.fr, available for Windows, macOS and Linux
IT’S HARD TO GET ENCRYPTION RIGHT. Criminals using the supposedly end-to-end encrypted app Encrochat discovered this the hard way in 2020 when law enforcement was given permission to infect the service’s servers with malware, allowing messages to be read.
VeraCrypt seeks to solve the problem of how to encrypt data at risk. It was originally developed in 2013 as a fork of the discontinued ‘Truecrypt’ project. Since then, it has made considerable improvements on Truecrypt’s original labyrinthine and occasionally buggy code.
For Windows users, the software can encrypt your OS and external disks. It can also be used to create encrypted ‘volumes’—ordinary files that can be placed on your device. When mounted as a virtual disk, VeraCrypt functions as an encrypted container for your private data.
VeraCrypt is open-source and also available for macOS and Linux, though there’s no option to encrypt your OS for non-Windows system partitions. In this tutorial, we’re focusing on the Windows version of VeraCrypt, available as both an MSI and EXE installer.
If you’re considering VeraCrypt for Windows, disable Bitlocker protection via the Control Panel or PowerShell. Visit https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/windows-security/suspend-bitlocker-protection-non-microsoft-updates.
–NATE DRAKE
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YOUR FIRST VOLUME
1Click ‘Create Volume’ to start the volume creation wizard. At first, we suggest choosing to create an ‘encr ypted file container’ in ‘standard’ format. Choose ‘Select File’ to choose where to place it and use the '.hc’ extension to ensure that it will be opened by VeraCr ypt.
» The ‘encr yption options’ defaults to AES and SHA-512. Use the ‘test’ and ‘benchmark’ buttons to test how quickly this and other combinations of cipher and hash algorithms will encr ypt/ decr ypt on your system.
» Use ‘Volume Size’ to determine the container size. VeraCr ypt also supports creating dynamic sparse-file containers, though these won’t perform nearly as efficiently as those of a fixed size. They also can’t contain hidden volumes. Still, if you do want a dynamic container, use this window to set its maximum size.
» With respect to VeraCr ypt’s advice on choosing a passphrase with special characters and numbers, we recommend using Diceware (https://diceware.dmuth.org) to generate six or more random dictionar y words for this purpose.
» You can also check ‘use keyfiles’ here and click the corresponding button to select any number of keyfiles to combine with the passphrase. They can be selected in any order, but make sure you read the red warning message.