USB flash drive security

[bowlofturtle]

So i keep a USB flash drive on my keychain. I had most of my college papers, resume, random photos, couple of PDF service manuals. Nothing super important like tax paperwork. But nonetheless it jumped off my keychain. I have a clue where it is but most likely i'll never find it. It most likely is somewhere at a LARGE parking lot or somewhere in the forest. I hope that its smashed by a tire or something. Anyways... having lost that it made me think. I should of put sometype of password on it. The person who finds it could use it as a base to do w/e. Has my personal info on my resume and some papers. I was thinking even a simply noob password would of kept some people out. Like if i password protected my resume in word. But i rather just encrypt the drive. I'm attempting to use this software "Veracrypt" to do it but it looks like i have to setup sometype of mount and unmount setup to read it. This wasn't what i wanted because i wanted to be use the drive on other computers. Any software out there that does this? Should i buy one of those fancy encryption pre-done flash drives? I know my WD portable HD has that encryption and that what i want.

 

[peejaycruiser]

I won a 32GB Kingston DataTraveler Locker that is hardware encrypted. To redo the password to access it reformats the thing so you can't see what was on there.

 

[CarbonSteel]

Some versions of Windows 7, 8, and 10 come with Bitlocker and you can use Bitlocker to Go to encrypt flash drives. Veracrypt is a fork of TrueCrypt and can also be used to encrypt flash drives.

 

[dparm]

BitLocker To Go if you use Windows machines. Otherwise, get a hardware encryption drive like IronKey.

 

[Garak]

Kind of old school, but do all the computers you use have WinRAR on them? If so, you can simply archive and encrypt/password protect your files. It won't be as secure as something like GPG, or even some of the other solutions mentioned, but it will be fairly painless.

 

[Californiabob]

use a 7.x version of TrueCrypt and put it on the USB drive along with the encrypted TrueCrypt colume. you can automate the mount process but I find it easy to do each time I need to access the files. usually the USB drive is used to access files outside your desktop or laptop.

 

[bowlofturtle]

Originally Posted By: dparm

BitLocker To Go if you use Windows machines. Otherwise, get a hardware encryption drive like IronKey.

I think this is the golden ticket. Couple questions before i try this... how new of the windows OS do i need? There are 2 computers that i use randomly still on XP pro and Vista. Everything else is win7-win10.

Originally Posted By: Garak

Kind of old school, but do all the computers you use have WinRAR on them? If so, you can simply archive and encrypt/password protect your files. It won't be as secure as something like GPG, or even some of the other solutions mentioned, but it will be fairly painless.

I wanted to do this but my work computer prevents me from installing any apps. Like i said, overall i dont need the most secure. A password is better then no password even if the password is "password1".

 

[JeepWJ19]

In all honesty I would first be more concerned about upgrading to a Win 7/8/10 distro before something as a USB. Windows XP and Vista are no longer supported and there are numerous amounts of exploits out there for them that can make you a sitting target if you aren't wise with what you do on your computer.