this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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Not sure is this is the best place to post this question, but wondering what is the best way to encrypt a usb drive?

Want to be able to carry an encrypted flash drive with me but also be able to unlock it, if possible, on various OSes. Preferably with some kind of portable software. Something similar to the method that comes with the Kingston Data Traveler USB drives.

Edit: Seems like Veracrypt and Cryptomator are the best options to check out. Thank everyone!

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Probably far from the best option; but you could use 7zip? Put a 7zip portable exe & linux binary on the usb, put the regular contents in an encrypted .zip file, anyone with the password can decrypt. I assume there are much more secure options though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Encrypted ZIPs are very trivial to break. I can break it with a simple python script.

For instance, Microsoft does that for all encrypted ZIPs

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/05/microsoft-is-scanning-the-inside-of-password-protected-zip-files-for-malware/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

7zip encryption is solid, but the problem with this is that you don't Mount 7zip, so you have to extract it. Once you extract encrypted files into a drive thats not encrypted, they may as well never have been encrypted in the first place.

Its better to use a tool that creates an encrypted filesystem that you can mount and read-write directly without copying the files onto another disk