Hello Geeks.. There are three encryption tools you can use instead of the now-defunct TrueCrypt.
A modern hard drive with a lock on it is a sign that the data is safe.
Everyone was shocked when TrueCrypt suddenly shut down in May of 2014. TrueCrypt was the most recommended software for encrypting a whole hard drive, but the developers suddenly said the code was "not secure" and stopped working on it.
We still don't know why TrueCrypt was shut down. Maybe the developers were told to shut it down by the government, or maybe they were just tired of keeping it running. But here are some other words you can use.
TrueCrypt 7.1a is the latest version (Yes, Still)
Yes, TrueCrypt was officially stopped from being improved, and its official download page was taken down. The developers have said that they are no longer interested in the code and that they can't trust third-party developers to keep it updated and fix bugs.
But the Gibson Research Corporation says that it's still safe to use TrueCrypt. The last real version of TrueCrypt is 7.1a, which came out in February 2012 and has been used by millions of people since then. The open-source code for TrueCrypt is going through an independent audit right now. This work started before the sudden shutdown, and Phase 1 of the audit is done with no major problems found. This is the first time an independent audit like this has been done on a piece of software. When it's done, the community can fix any problems they find in a new version of the TrueCrypt code, and TrueCrypt can keep going. The code for TrueCrypt is open-source, which means that not even the people who made it can stop it from going on. At least, that's what the Gibson Research Corporation says. Others, like the non-profit Committee To Protect Journalists, say that it is still safe to use the TrueCrypt code.
If you still want to use the standard TrueCrypt code, you should make sure you have TrueCrypt 7.1a. TrueCrypt 7.2 is available on the official site. It stops you from making new encrypted volumes, so you can move your data from TrueCrypt to another solution. And most importantly, make sure you get TrueCrypt 7.1a from a reliable place and check the files to make sure they haven't been changed. The Open Crypto Audit Project has its own verified mirror, and you can get the files from the GRC website as well.
If you choose this path, the old advice about how to use TrueCrypt is still good. Make sure to keep an eye on how the TrueCrypt audit turns out. Most likely, everyone will agree on a successor to TrueCrypt one day. CipherShed and TCnext are two possible solutions, but they aren't ready yet.
VeraCrypt
VeraCrypt is a version of TrueCrypt that is now popular online. VeraCrypt is a branch of TrueCrypt. It uses the same code as TrueCrypt.
The difference between TrueCrypt and VeraCrypt has been explained by developer Mounir Idrassi. In short, the developer says he has fixed "all the serious security issues and weaknesses found so far in the source code" by the Open Crypto Audit Project, as well as other memory leaks and possible buffer overflows.
VeraCrypt is not compatible with TrueCrypt's own volume format, unlike the CipherShed and TCnext projects mentioned above. Because of this change, VeraCrypt is no longer able to open TrueCrypt container files. You'll have to use VeraCrypt to decrypt your data and then encrypt it again.
The VeraCrypt project has added more iterations to the PBKDF2 algorithm. This makes brute-force attacks harder to do by making them take longer. But this won't help you if you encrypt your volume with a weak passphrase. This also makes booting and decrypting encrypted volumes take longer. Idrassi just talked to eSecurity Planet about the project if you want to know more about it.
Now that VeraCrypt has had its first audit, the project has fixed a number of security problems. Things are going well with this project.
Built-in encryption is part of your operating system.
Almost all of today's operating systems have encryption built in, though the encryption in standard, or Home, editions of Windows isn't very good. You might want to use the encryption that comes with your operating system instead of TrueCrypt. Here are some things your operating system can do for you:
* Windows 7 Home, Windows 8, and Windows 8.1: The Home and "core" versions of Windows 8 and 8.1 don't have built-in full disk encryption, which is one reason why TrueCrypt became so popular.
* Device Encryption is a feature of Windows 8.1 that is only available on new computers that come with Windows 8.1 and meet certain requirements. It also makes you upload a copy of your recovery key to Microsoft's servers (or the domain servers of your organization), so it's not the most secure way to encrypt your files.
* Windows Professional: Windows 8 and 8.1, which are the professional versions of Windows, come with BitLocker encryption. Full-disk encryption isn't turned on by default, but you can turn it on yourself. Note: BitLocker only works with Windows 7 Ultimate, as it is not included in Windows 7 Pro.
* Mac OS X: FileVault disk encryption is built into Macs. When you set up a new Mac with Mac OS X Yosemite, you can choose to have it automatically turned on. If you don't, you can turn it on from the System Preferences dialog if you want to.
* Linux: There are many ways to protect data with Linux. Modern Linux distributions often include this right in their installers, making it easy to enable full-disk encryption for your new Linux install. Modern versions of Ubuntu, for instance, use LUKS (Linux Unified Key Setup) to encrypt your hard drive.
Even Chromebooks have some encryption, and mobile devices have their own encryption systems. Full-disk encryption is the only way to keep your data safe on Windows, but you still have to go out of your way to do it.