We bring to your attention an overview of the most popular hardware and software to encrypt data on an external hard drive.
Let's start with the simplest. Mac OS X has a built-in Disk Utility that allows you to create an encrypted disk image. You can also use third-party software to encrypt files or folders, for example, FileWard,. In addition, some backup applications offer encryption of backups out of the box.
These methods are good. But sometimes using software encryption is not the best option. For example, when you need to encrypt backups Time Machine. To protect such backups, you will have to do some tricky manipulations, because Time Machine does not support encryption. Conventional software will not help when you need to create an encrypted copy boot disk so that it remains bootable. Encrypted disks also have another limitation: they cannot be used on other computers (Mac or PC) without special software.
is one of those applications that allows you to encrypt the contents of a disk, which remains bootable and usable on Mac and PC. This is a great application, but to access information, PGP must be installed on each computer to which such a drive is connected. Also, if the disk is damaged, encryption may prevent data recovery.
If you need a universal solution that does not impose restrictions on disk usage, you should purchase a HDD with built-in encryption. The disk independently encrypts and decrypts data, so the need to install additional software absent. In this case, the disk can be used as a boot volume or for Time Machine. One caveat: if the drive's controller or other electronics fail, you will not be able to transfer data from the device (even with fully working mechanics) until the HDD is fully restored.
Encryption-enabled hard drives come in several types, depending on the decryption mechanism:
Hardware keys
Some manufacturers offer encrypting HDD boxes that are locked using a physical device. As long as the key is present (connected or near the disk), the disk can be read.
HDDs of this type: RadTech’s ($95), RocStor and several devices from ($50+). All boxes have two or three compatible keys, which are connected to a special port on the device. SecureDISK offers with an infrared key (the media must be nearby to use the disk).
Fingerprint scanners
If you are worried about losing physical media, then you can look towards HDD boxes with a fingerprint scanner. A few examples: MXI Security ($419-$599) and LaCie ($400 for a 2GB model). (Some older models of LaCie boxes, 2.5″ format, do not encrypt data, but use less reliable locking in the firmware). These drives are easy to use and can store the fingerprints of up to five people. It is worth noting that there are several techniques for deceiving the finger scanner (without the presence of the original finger).
Keyboard
($230-480) – encrypting disk boxes that do not require physical keys or biometric readers. Instead, the keyboard is used to enter a password (up to 18 characters). Using a keyboard instead of a physical key is convenient when the disk often passes between hands. The drives support a “self-destruct” feature that deletes all stored information after several unsuccessful password attempts.
Two types of authentication
At least one product offers a combination of a physical key (in the form of a smart card) and a built-in keyboard in a compact disk shell. This option is for protection hard drive is the most reliable, since to access information the user must have a key and know the secret password.
Viruses cause significant harm to the system, so you should promptly protect your equipment and flash drive in particular from viruses. One of the system’s vulnerabilities is USB drives, which carry malicious software between devices.
Is the flash drive infected?
Any flash drive that was used on an infected device will also be affected. Most often transmitted in this way Trojans and worms. There are several characteristic characteristics of infection them:
How becomes infectedUSB flash drive? It connects to the system and, along with the files transferred to it, receives malicious software, since it is contained in the files and system code that is involved at the time of copying. As soon as the media is connected to the device and the system launches the infected files, the virus starts working along with them and infects the system of this device. Any flash drive connected to an infected computer contains the body of the virus, which also affects the autorun.inf file, thanks to which it immediately starts working on the new PC.
How to protect a flash drive
You can protect your flash drive from possible malware infection using system tools. The most important thing is to turn off automatic start media to prevent a virus from being downloaded to the device.
Disable autorun
This can be done in 2 ways. The first includes group policies:
In addition, when connecting a flash drive, you can hold down a keyShift– this will also prevent autostart.
The second method uses the Registry Editor:
After these procedures have been completed, the media will no longer start on its own.
Using the autorun inf file
The virus usually gets onto the media with the autorun.inf startup file, but if it is already created on the media, this will not happen:
Closed access
Sometimes it’s enough to simply block the device’s access to the drive:
All of these are system tools that help block access to the media for malware.
Applications and antiviruses
In addition to system tools, there are also programs that protect USB drives from infection.
Bitdefender USB Immunizer
Download free version The utility is available from the official website, it does not require installation and is extremely simple. After launching it, all connected removable drives will be visible in the window that opens. Having selected the required one, the user will indicate to the utility the object to be protected. She immediately disablesautorun viruses and blocks their automatic launch.
Panda USB Vaccine
After downloading the program from the official website, you need to install it on your PC. It is more complex than the previous utility and has a wider range of actions:
It's quite simple to use:
The procedure must be repeated with each USB drive.
Ninja Pendisk
After downloading the program, you do not need to install it. It works automatically and is capable of:
After downloading it works independently, checking each disk.
xUSB Defense
You can download the program from the official website, it's free. Installation is quick and simple; the program itself weighs only 1 MB and appears in the notification panel immediately after installation. 
The program can:
- automatically delete or quarantine viruses;
- do hidden files visible;
- restore data hidden by the virus.
However, the utility does not distinguish malware from regular programs, so you should rename all their files in advance. In addition, it can automatically delete documents from the media, so in the settings it is better to disable the “ Working with documents».
When working with the utility, just left-click on the icon for the settings window and right-click to open the program menu. Clicking with the left mouse button opens the settings window, right clicking opens the menu.
A hard drive is a popular modern device that allows you to expand your computer's memory without opening it. system unit. Modern external hard drives can fit into any handbag, which means you can always have large amounts of information at hand. If you store confidential information on your hard drive, then best way Protecting it means setting a password.
Password - universal remedy to protect information, which is a key that can consist of any number of letters, numbers and symbols. If the user enters the password incorrectly, then access to the data stored on the external hard drive cannot be obtained.
How to set a password on an external hard drive?
We have already covered this on our website before. Moreover, the question of the correct one was also considered. Below we will talk about how to apply a password for this device.
Setting a password using built-in Windows tools
Setting a password in this case is used successfully both for regular USB drives and external hard drives, which are characterized by large amounts of disk space. The main advantage this method is that you will not be required to download and install third-party programs.
Connect external hard drive to your computer and then open Windows Explorer. Specifically, we are interested in the “This Computer” section, which displays all connected drives to the computer. Click on external hard drive right click mouse and in the displayed context menu go to the point "Enable BitLocker" .
The utility will start launching on the screen. After a moment, a window will appear on the screen in which you will need to check the box “Use a password to unlock the disk” , and in the lines below specify the new password twice. Click the button "Next" .
Next, you will be asked to choose the option to save a special recovery key. You have three options to choose from: save to your account Microsoft, save it to a file on your computer or immediately print the key on a printer. In our opinion, the second option is the most preferable, since you can upload this file, for example, to the cloud, and at any time, if the password for the external hard drive is forgotten, open it.
The next setting item asks you to configure data encryption. You can either select to encrypt only the occupied disk space, or encrypt the entire disk.
Please note that if you choose to encrypt the entire disk, you need to be prepared for the fact that the encryption process may take many hours. Therefore, if you do not have the availability large quantity time, and also open the hard drive is supposed to modern computers, we recommend choosing the first encryption option.
The final setup step is to select an encryption mode from two available: new mode encryption and compatibility mode. Considering that we are working with external hard drive, check the option "Compatibility Mode" , and then move on.
Actually, this completes the BitLocker setup process. To start the password process, all you have to do is click the button "Start encryption" and wait for the process to complete.
If, after encryption is complete, you open Windows Explorer in the “This PC” section, then our external hard the disk will be listed with a lock icon. An open icon with a lock indicates that access to the data has been obtained, and a closed icon, as shown in the screenshot below, indicates that a password is required.
Having opened the disk twice, a miniature window will appear on the screen in which the user will be asked to enter the password for the connected external hard drive.
Setting a password using archiving
Many users do not trust the data encryption process because this way you cannot access the entire drive. Therefore, we will use this method in a slightly different way - we will place the information saved on an external hard drive in an archive without compression, i.e. An external hard drive, if necessary, can be used without a password, but to access the information stored in it, you will need to enter a security key.
To set a password using archiving information, you will need almost any archiver program. In our case, we will use the popular tool WinRAR , which you can download from the link given at the end of the article.
As soon as the archiver program is installed on your computer, open the contents of the external hard drive, select it with a simple keyboard shortcut Ctrl + A, or select certain folders and files in case you need to hide not all information on the external hard drive under a password. After that, right-click on the selection and select the item in the context menu that appears "Add to archive" .
A window will appear on the screen in which you will need in the block "Compression method" select option "No compression" , and then click the button "Set password" .
In the window that appears, you will need to enter a password of any duration twice. Below, if necessary, you can activate encryption of the data contained in the archive (without activating this item, the names of folders and files will be visible, but access to them will be limited).
When the creation of the archive is completed, the root folder of the hard drive, in addition to the files, will also contain the archive you created. Now files on the disk, except the archive, can be deleted.
When you try to open the archive, a window will appear on the screen asking you to enter a password. Until the archive password is received, access to information will be limited.
What's the result?
Most effective way storage of confidential information - use standard means BitLocker. This is a wonderful utility, which, perhaps, cannot be found with analogs that are superior in quality. The second method, which involves using an archiver, can be considered the most preferable, since it does not restrict access to the external hard drive, but only to the information that you want to password-protect.
Of course, there are still a lot of information encryption programs, but we did not focus on them, since the two methods described in the article are the most optimal for most users.
How to password protect your external hard drive
What should you do to protect external media with a password yourself?
Protecting data on such devices is permissible by using special utilities. After searching the Internet, I found that the most effective and easiest were TrueCrypt, Folder Guard, Disk Password Protection and Cryptainer + DecypherIT. Finding and downloading them is not difficult. My task is to explain to you *how to protect an external hard drive with a password* after installing these utilities.
It is better that the external hard drive is empty before the process. This way it’s faster to work with it and there will be no fear of data loss in case of your wrong actions. If you need to password protect a device with data, I advise you to copy it to your computer.
Now let's look at the use of each of the utilities in more detail.
TrueCrypt
What we do:
1) launch TrueCrypt;
2) click “Create volume”;
3) select “Encrypt non-system partition”, click next;
4) select “Regular volume”, then further;
5) click the “Device...” button, find and click our device and click ok;
6) then the Volume creation mode window will open. Select the first item if you have cleared or copied your information to another medium. If you haven’t taken care of this, select the second item and wait a longer time than in the first case;
7) in the encryption settings window, leave everything as it is and click next;
8) now we indicate a code of 20 characters and symbols;
9) the Format Volume window appears. To File. syst. select NTFS, leave the rest unchanged and click Partition;
10) encryption has started. The completion time depends on the size of the drive and the data available on it. So clean external drive 1 TB is processed for more than an hour;
11) When finished, click ok and exit. We are thrown into the main menu, where we need to assign a free letter to the volume and then select our drive;
12) ok/mount/code/ok.
That's all - the device was protected with a password.
Folder Guard
After launching it, a window appears in which the connected devices are visible. Click on your connected media with the left mouse button and proceed to install the encryption. It's quite simple. Left-click “Lock with password” and enter the invented numbers and symbols in the top line. And at the bottom we repeat them. Then confirm by clicking OK in subsequent windows. At the end you will be asked to save your settings. You save them and close everything.
Next, when you try to open the hard drive, you will be prompted to enter a code. And when you close it, a window will pop up asking whether to leave it classified. If you leave it, then you will enter the code every time you open it. If not, then the hard drive will be back in open access and in order to password protect it you will have to go through the procedure again.
Cryptainer + DecypherIT
As usual, we launch the installed Cryptainer. We see pop-up tips in windows asking you to enter encryption parameters. We do everything they ask. We indicate the location of the encrypted device, its size and password. Next, we get acquainted with the program’s useful features, which appear in new windows and tell you *how to password protect an external hdd* yourself. Then we indicate the path to our disk and click Load.
This is how we encrypted the external media. Using this utility you can password protect anything you want, even individually: sound, video, text files etc.
If you do not have the Cryptainer program, you will need the DecypherIT utility and your previously entered secret code to view the data.
Disk Password Protection.
Like previous utilities, we also install this one on our computer and run it. In the window that opens, select what you want to hide from others the right people and launch the “Protection Wizard”, checking “Master” and “Protection”. Then we indicate the type of hard drive to be protected and continue by clicking “Next”.
The following actions must be performed in accordance with the requests that appear in the new windows. Then, in a special form, you need to indicate the invented complex code and confirm it by typing it again in another line.
The program also allows you to set a hidden protection mode. To do this, after entering the password, check the box this mode and click Next. The last step and everything is protected from outsiders.
Personal opinion
If these programs seem too abstruse for you and you are already tired of searching, downloading and installing many encryption utilities, I offer an alternative to your suffering - a hdd with built-in encryption. He does everything himself: encrypts and decrypts the data. And you don't need to install anything additional. However, there are also disadvantages. If the controller or other electronics fails, there will be no chance to transfer data from the device to another medium.
Set a password on your external hard drive- this is the right thing. All information must be private and no one should use it. So you are on the right track. Choose the program you like and protect your data. Just don’t forget to write down the password you created somewhere. Memory can sometimes fail and everything will turn out to be inaccessible even to you.
This is always the case with security. It’s worth relaxing and, having chatted with a friend, you insert his flash drive into your well-functioning computer, and when asked by Kaspersky - should we check this flash drive, you lightheartedly answer - no, no... And then you get entertainment for the whole weekend...
And even more often there is another situation - when you have to insert your flash drive into someone else's computer. This is not necessarily the computer of friends, now you can pick up a virus in a photo printing studio, and even at the tax office...
In this article I will tell you how to protect your computer and flash drive from viruses without additional programs.
You will learn 3 high-quality, time-tested methods that save you in most cases.
Do not go into the registry if you have never done this and have little idea of the difference between a section and a parameter, and how parameters are created and their values are changed!
1. Protect your computer from viruses on a flash drive. Disable autoloading.
Let's start by first protecting your computer from infected flash drives. You never know where we inserted our own flash drive, or someone came to us with an unknown flash drive...
To reliably protect your computer from viruses on USB flash drives, it is enough to disable autoloading (autorun) on all drives connected to the computer. For this you can use special programs(Anti autorun), or make simple settings.
Anti-autorun is a program for protecting flash drives, memory cards, mp3-4 players and other removable storage media from viruses.
All further actions done with administrator rights.
Ways to protect your computer from autostart on flash drives
1. Disable autorun in group policies
Open Local Group Policy Editor:
Start - Run (Win+R) - gpedit.msc or in the search bar start typing “group”
Computer Configuration - Administrative Templates - All Settings - Disable AutoPlay
Right click - Edit - Enable - All devices - Apply.
2. Disable autorun using the registry editor
You can also completely disable autorun from all drives using the Registry Editor.
Launch Registry Editor (Win+R). Open a thread
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
and in the value of the binary parameter " NoDriveTypeAutoRun", and instead of "95" (or "91") write "FF".
Valid key values:
0x1 - disable autorun on drives of unknown types
0x4 - disable autostart of removable devices
0x8 - disable autostart of non-removable devices
0x10 - disable autostart of network drives
0x20 - disable autorun of CD drives
0x40 - disable autorun of RAM disks
0x80 - disable autorun on drives of unknown types
0xFF - disable autorun for all disks.
In Windows XP, this key is missing by default (nor is the Explorer section itself), so you may need to create a corresponding Explorer section and parameter NoDriveTypeAutoRun, which controls device startup.
All changes to the registry take effect after a reboot.
3. Write to the script registry
The following method provides more advanced options for removing potentially dangerous system security holes, including those related to autorun.
Create a custom reg file (for example, named noautorun.reg) with the following content:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AutoplayHandlers\CancelAutoplay\Files]
«*.*»=»»
"NoDriveTypeAutoRun"=dword:000000ff
"NoDriveAutoRun"=dword:000000ff
"NoFolderOptions"=dword:00000000
"CheckedValue"=dword:00000001
@="@SYS:DoesNotExist"
"AutoRun"=dword:00000000
Then run this file and answer “Yes” when asked by the system about making changes.
You can disable autorun temporarily (for example, if you do not have administrator rights), while you connect the device (flash drive) by holding down the key Shift. In this case, it is recommended to open the flash drive not through “My Computer” (otherwise autorun will work), but through Explorer.
2 Protect the flash drive using autorun.inf
Once upon a time, to protect a USB flash drive from viruses, it was considered sufficient to create an empty autorun.inf file on it and assign read-only rights to it. In this case, the virus could not create its own startup file there, since such a file already existed and had the appropriate attributes.
The essence of the method is to protect special file, which is responsible for automatically launching the program the moment the disk is connected to the system.
The file is called autorun.inf. Viruses love it.
The fact is that if you write a virus onto a flash drive and then specify a command in autorun.inf to launch it, then the malicious program will be launched EVERY TIME you connect the drive to the system.
So, to protect your flash drive, do the following:
Step 1. Open text editor“Notepad” (Start - Accessories - Notepad).
Step 2. Copy these lines and paste them into Notepad:
attrib -S -H -R -A autorun.*
del autorun.*
attrib -S -H -R -A recycler
rd "\\?\%~d0\recycler\" /s /q
attrib -S -H -R -A recycled
rd "\\?\%~d0\recycled\" /s /q
mkdir "\\?\%~d0\AUTORUN.INF\LPT3″
attrib +S +H +R +A %~d0\AUTORUN.INF /s /d
mkdir "\\?\%~d0\RECYCLED\LPT3″
attrib +S +H +R +A %~d0\RECYCLED /s /d
mkdir "\\?\%~d0\RECYCLER\LPT3″
attrib +S +H +R +A %~d0\RECYCLER /s /dattrib -s -h -r autorun.*
del autorun.*
mkdir %~d0AUTORUN.INF
mkdir "?%~d0AUTORUN.INF.."
attrib +s +h %~d0AUTORUN.INF
You can select text with the mouse, copy it to the clipboard, then switch to Notepad and execute the paste command.
What do these commands mean? How does it work?
First, we delete files or folders that the virus may have created, removing the security attributes from them.
This various types files named autorun, folders recycler and recycled, masquerading as a recycle bin.
Then we create a folder called Autorun.inf in a special way, containing a folder with the system name LPT3. Since the days of the unforgettable DOS, there have been a number of names that cannot be used to name files and folders with which any operations cannot be performed. An example of such reserved names: LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, PRN, CONF, con, nul, AUX, COM1…. and others. Try creating a folder, say PRN. You won't succeed. Ordinary using Windows the folder cannot be created. But there is a way. This is what is used in this script.
Line
mkdir "\\?\%~d0\autorun.inf\LPT3″ means:
mkdir- command to create a directory.
\\?\
- this is exactly what helps to create a folder with a reserved system name.
%~d0\- designation of a specific directory.
If you specify f:\ instead, then you can run the script from anywhere; it will create it on the f: drive.
autorun.inf and LPT3 are the names of the directories that will be created.
By the way, you can delete this folder in the same way, but there is no other way. If you want to delete, run on the command line:
rmdir\\?\f:\autorun.inf\,
where f: is the drive from which we delete the “autorun.inf” folder.
One more point: adding attributes to folders is additional protection.
Team attrib adds the following attributes to these folders: system, hidden, read-only, archive.
Step 3. Save the document to the USB flash drive as a file with the bat extension. Definitely on a flash drive and always with the bat extension. The name can be anything, for example: locker.bat
Step 4. Launch Explorer, go to the USB flash drive and run the file.
After launch, a folder will be created AUTORUN.INF with attributes that protect it from recording and hide it from prying eyes.
Now, if you insert a USB flash drive into an infected computer, the virus will not be able to change the startup file. Because instead of a file we have a folder, and it’s also hidden and write-protected. Nothing will work out for him.
But look: the virus can write itself to another location on the disk or change some file.
Therefore, insert a flash drive into your computer without fear and - I strongly recommend - check it for viruses. The time spent on checking is not commensurate with the losses that will occur after the system is infected with a virus.
Please note: our protection only prevents changes to the autorun file.
To protect another flash drive, perform a vaccination: copy the file locker.bat onto it and run it in Explorer.
3. Protect your flash drive from viruses.
The protection is very high quality, in my opinion, the best, it has been tested by time and viruses, it saves in 99% of cases!
A flash drive made using this method, after contact with an infectious laptop, or rather dozens of laptops, will remain crystal clear. So we do it without hesitation!
1. Check the file system type.
Go to “My Computer”, find our flash drive, right-click on it, then select “ Property" and we see the following picture:
If you, like me, have a file NTFS system, then move on to the next point. For those with Fat32, you need to change file system. This can only be done with formatting.
Right-click on the removable drive and select “Format” - NTFS - Quick Format.
I hope you are aware that formatting will delete all data from the flash drive.
2. Create a folder for data.
Create an empty folder on the flash drive. For example - 'Data'
3. We close access to the flash drive.
Again open the properties of the removable disk, tab .
We see the “Allow” column with checkmarks. This means that we have full access, we can create new files, delete, edit, and so on without any problems. Viruses are simply happy because of this and skillfully use their freedom.
Since we are categorically not satisfied with this matter, we click on the “Change” button. In the window that appears, uncheck all the checkboxes except “ List of folder contents" And " Reading" and click "Ok".
Thus, we blocked access to the flash drive. Now, if you want to create on it new folder or file (or copy), we will get an error. It will not work to perform the “send to” function removable disk" But the good news is that the virus will not be able to register itself on the flash drive in this situation.
4. Open access rights to the created folder
We need to return all rights to the folder that we created in the root of the flash drive, otherwise it will be impossible not only for viruses, but also for us to work with it. To do this, as usual, right-click on the folder and “Properties” - Edit, and check all the boxes in the “ Allow».
After clicking OK, the flash drive’s virus protection is installed.
All data will be stored in this folder and will have full access. You can always delete, create, copy, rename... or do anything with files and folders. But viruses (more precisely, as I said right away, not all, but 99% for sure) will not be able to do anything, since they automatically crawl into the root folder.
Remember that it is much easier to prevent a virus from getting onto a flash drive than to repair the damage later.