How Does Full Disk Encryption Work?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2017-05-06
·
917 words · ~4 min read
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a lot of the talk about encryption these days centers around securing things like
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internet connections and passwords on a server somewhere and it makes sense
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considering how much data is constantly being tossed around online but let's say
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that you've done everything you can to hide your online activity using a VPN
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making up a 20 character freaking password for your social media accounts
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and overwriting your browser cache what if despite all of this someone just
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walks off with your hard drive computer or breaks in while you're out of the
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house and starts trying to get into your stuff this is where an equally important
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kind of encryption can really help you it's called whole Drive encryption or
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full dis encryption and just like the name says the idea is to encrypt your
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whole drive so a thief can't just access
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all of your private data if they walk off with it but how does this work many
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full dis encryption methods such as Windows bit Locker try to give you a
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fairly transparent experience when you're actually using the computer to do
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this all of the data on your drive is encrypted and the next time you boot up
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your computer you'll be presented with a special preboot environment that will
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ask you for an encryption key this could be something as simple as a password or
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a key stored on a physical drive like a USB stick if you'd rather go that route
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after you supply the appropriate credentials your hard drive will be
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decrypted and you'll be able to carry on business as usual of course if someone
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steals your hard drive and your encryption key isn't terribly strong it
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might not be too hard for some miscreant to crack it so many users who use full
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dis encryption add another layer of protection through a trusted platform
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module or TPM this is an addin chip
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found on some motherboards and even if you don't have one many modern
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motherboards including lower cost ones have TPM headers so you can just buy one
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for not a lot of money and in install it yourself what a TPM does is generate
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encryption keys and stores them at least in part on the module itself instead of
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just the hard drive TPMS can also detect tampering attempts so if someone steals
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your hard drive out of your computer and
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tries to put it in their own it won't work and speaking of tampering TPMS can
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additionally tell if someone has injected malicious code like a root kit
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which you can learn about up here into your boot sector which often can't be
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encrypto by full drive encryption schemes this way it can lock down the
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system and help you recover it later without exposing it to rootkit malware
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some people even take this a step farther and buy Hardware encrypted
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drives that have a built-in chip that can encrypt the entire enchilada
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including your boot sector but despite all these ways to secure your drive they
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don't really do much at all to keep your data safe once your computer is up and
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running remember how I said it decrypts your entire higher Drive instead many
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people who are serious about security especially if they have to leave their
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computers on 24/7 for whatever reason use some sort of file system level
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encryption that can encrypt and decrypt individual files on demand very useful
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if you don't want someone to randomly use your PC and pouring through all of
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your questionable downloads so let us know if you'd like to see a video on how
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to keep your files safe from prying eyes if you have to leave your window session
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unattended after all you definitely don't want everyone knowing it was you
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Braintree payments.com tequ don't forget
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to let John know in the comments down below if you want to see a file system
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level encryption video like the video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked
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it don't forget to get subscribed to Techquickie um check out links in the
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video description we've got a bunch of cool ones there they're interesting I'm
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sure if you get bored by those links you can check out Channel Super Fun which is
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more interesting and if you're wondering what the hell that incessant Whispering
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was in the background of this entire video say hi lonus hello lonus is doing
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the W show so I'm gonna go do that now
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so hope gone the days of having