USB flash drives are a great way to carry data, but they also require protection. Encrypting a portable USB flash drive is an excellent approach to keep critical data out of the wrong hands.
Encrypting your USB device is rather simple if you’re using Windows 10. Here’s a step-by-step instruction to assist you in the process of securing your USB drive.
Encrypting a USB Drive on Windows 10
If you’re running Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise, or Education, you may encrypt your flash drive with BitLocker To Go, Microsoft’s native disc encryption software. You can utilize a third-party disk encryption application if your device is running Windows 10 Home.
1. Encrypting a USB Drive on Windows 10 Using BitLocker To Go
BitLocker is a disk encryption software from Microsoft that comes pre-installed on several Windows editions, including Windows 10. To protect your data, it employs AES encryption technology with customizable key lengths of 128 or 256 bits. BitLocker To Go is an edition of BitLocker drive encryption for USB flash drives, SD cards, and external drives (HDD and SSD) that are formatted in the NTFS, FAT16, FAT32, or exFAT file systems.
- To encrypt your USB device with BitLocker To Go, follow the steps below:
- Connect the USB device that you want to encrypt to the computer.
- Click Start and type Control Panel into the search box.
- Select BitLocker Drive Encryption from the System and Security menu in the Control Panel.
- Select your detachable drive under Removable data drives -BitLocker To Go on the BitLocker Drive Encryption window.
- Next to the selected drive, click Turn on BitLocker.
- Check the box next to To unlock the drive and create an encryption password, use a password and click next. [Make sure your password is strong]
- Choose any one of the following options for saving the recovery key: Save on your Microsoft user account, save to a file, or print the recovery key on the next screen and click next.
- Choose how much of your drive you wish to encrypt: you can encrypt just the used disc space or the full drive.
- Choose between New encryption mode and Compatible encryption mode. Choose Compatible mode if you plan to use the drive with older versions of Windows. Otherwise, select New encryption mode and go to the next step.
- Finally, choose to Start encrypting to begin the process of encrypting your drive.
The encryption procedure can take a long time, depending on how much data you have on your device and the encryption mode you choose.
Remove the drive from your computer once it has been encrypted.
2. Encrypting a USB Drive on Windows 10 with the help of VeraCrypt
If your computer runs Windows 10 Home, you’ll have to use third-party disc encryption software to encrypt your USB drive. There are several options available that provide strong, on-the-fly encryption in this area (OTFE). VeraCrypt, on the other hand, is the one we’ll be using in this guide.
Veracrypt is a freeware drive encryption program that runs on all major operating systems, including Windows. It’s simply a fork of TrueCrypt, an encryption program that stopped being developed in 2014. The software primarily employs the AES encryption technique, as well as a few cascaded algorithms such as AES-Twofish, AES-Twofish-Serpent, and others.
Below are the steps to encrypt your USB drive using VeraCrypt:
Visit the VeraCrypt website to get the program for your Windows 10 computer.
To install VeraCrypt, double-click on the.exe file to launch the installer and follow the on-screen instructions.
Connect the USB disc you want to encrypt to the computer.
Now, open VeraCrypt and select the Create Volume button.
Select the radio button that says Encrypt a non-system partition/drive on the VeraCrypt Volume Creation Wizard and then click Next.
Select your USB device on the next screen and click OK.
Select a creation mode on the Volume Creation Mode screen. Choose to create an encrypted volume and format it if your drive is empty. Select Encrypt partition in place if none of the other options are available, and then hit next.
Create a strong password for your drive on the next screen, then click Next.
Move your cursor around randomly in the Collecting Random Data screen to make the encryption keys stronger.
Again, depending on how much data is saved on your USB device, the encryption process may take some time to finish. Remove the drive from your computer once it’s finished.
Protecting USB Drives With Encryption
Encrypting your USB drive makes it unreadable and protects it from illegal access. When you insert your encrypted drive into a PC, you’ll need its decryption password, which you set when it was encrypted, to decrypt it and gain access to its contents.
Since this password is so crucial, create a backup of the recovery keys for your encrypted USB device. You will be unable to decrypt the drive and retrieve its data if you do not supply the right password at the moment of decryption.
I am a tech writer based in the USA. I like to write about games, gadgets, and everything that interests me. I take digital security very seriously and encourage readers for the same by reviewing different antiviruses and elaborating on their installation process, such as Norton.com/setup.
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