Password Protection for USB sticks (For PC and Mac)

Hi Derek,

I have found this article which lists 3 possible ways for you to do so, however the programs suggested do not work with MACs. :-(

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-password-protect-your-usb-stick-3-easy-ways/

I would recommend option 2 or 3.

Hi Adrian, I've tried this one but am having a lot of trouble with it. It doesn't seem possible for it to be installed to work on both platforms (MAC and PC).

Sorry about that Derek - I checked their FAQ which stated that is works across platforms.

There are separate downloads for Windows and Mac on their download page.  http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads  You should be able to decrypt the USB drive with either version but the computer must have one of the versions of the software installed.

So if I want to have the password protection work on both PC and MAC I need to install the Mac version on a mac and the pc version on a pc and do this for all drives? I don't have a mac so this will not be feasible. Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.

According to the FAQ, you can load TrueCrypt on the USB drive along with the data as a 'Portable Application' and run it from there.  But you would have to know what system it was going to be plugged into.  As I think you have found out, there aren't any programs that run on both Windows and Mac and especially nothing that will auto-run.

Even if you don't have a Mac, you can still set it up. Do NOT install software on a stick

Provide your users with links to truecrypt installers on the stick. If they want to decrypt their USB sticks on a Mac they would install the mac version _on the Mac_ (not on the stick) and use that to decrypt. Also, I bet in a 100 users there are some that would like to use neither MacOSX nor Windows (yes, I'm talking about other *nixes) to occasionally access the info on a USB stick. With truecrypt, you can also cater to their needs by pointing them to truecrypt binaries or sources (not usually necessary, though :)

what it would look like is then stick that is either formatted in superfloppy format in VFAT or a single VFAT partition that has one large truecrypt container file and some links in a readme.html or some such. you can also stash the installer packages onto the stick but since the software from the web is more often more recent than that a simple set of OS specific links to truecrypt site should suffice.

Hi jakopriit,

Could you walk me through the steps on how to setup the password protection? I am using the PC version but as I mentioned I would like it to work for MAC also. I have installed the Truecript program now but am not sure how to do it correctly.

Perhaps a description of how the USBs are expected to work would be helpful. Once any password is known, what is the expected result? How is the USB going to be used? And if a password is not known, what should be the result?

Tom

Depending on the data you want to protect, maybe just a physical keypad to prevent access?
there are hardware encrypted USB sticks that take the OS out of the equation
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233128&nm_mc
http://www.kingston.com/us/usb/encrypted_security/
http://www.imation.com/en-CA/Mobile-Security/Mobile-Security-Products/Secure-Data/Imation-Defender-Pivot-Flash-Drive/Defender-F50-Pivot-Flash-Drive/
http://www.ironkey.com/en-US/secure-portable-storage/index.html?gclid=CKD3hoi9rLgCFUxgMgodXlsAjQ

Also as stated above, to use TC on mac you have to have the binary installed or on another partition of the USB stick. You can store the standalone/portable binaries for windows and mac on the USB without any worry, just make sure your USB is formatted fat32 so that both platforms can read it equally. NTFS may work these days, but fat32 is still very typical.

TC works like this. You open TC, locate the file/folder/partition/device you want to mount and enter the password, and sometimes point to a keyfile for a second layer of protection (and one that avoids keylogging). Then TC opens the encrypted container. The data is only decrypted in memory and when accessing, if you removed the USB suddenly or lost power, the contents are still fully encrypted, the decryption keys are in memory only.

http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/truecrypt-portable
-rich