True Crypt is an Open-Source software that can be used to create encrypted containers on devices. One of the major advantages of True Crypt is that it can be used as a portable application which means that you can copy the True Crypt files on the USB device so that the software does not have to be installed on the computer system where the data is needed.

There is however the requirement that the user who wants to mount the True Crypt volume to get access to the data needs to have administrative rights to run the software. That is however the only requirement.

Download the True Crypt software and run the setup. The setup displays options to install or extract the contents. Choose the extract option and pick the USB device as the target. All the files needed to encrypt and decrypt data will be extracted to the USB device.

Run truecrypt.exe afterwards. We need to create an encrypted container on the USB device that can store the data that we want to protect. It is limited to the free space on the USB device.

Click on Create Volume in the main interface and select the option to create an encrypted file container. Use the standard volume type in the next screen. Now browse to the USB device and pick a random filename that should be used as the container. You can use any name or extension, it does not really matter, for example test.avi, test.txt or bigrar.rar.

Pick an encryption algorithm (AES is fine and fast) and a Hash Algorithm (SJA-512) and define the space on the device that you want to assign. Select a password (20+ chars are recommended, the more the securer). The volume (in this case the space that you have selected) will be formatted. Move the mouse around to create random information and click the format button in the end.

This completes the creation of the encrypted container on the device. You need to mount it whenever you are going to use it. This is done by executing True Crypt from the USB device, picking a drive letter and selecting the file that contains the encrypted container.

The last step would be to click on mount to enter the password that is needed for the data decryption.

The data will be secure whenever the container is not mounted on the computer system. That’s one of the safest ways of transporting data from location A to B. Got any questions? Let me know.

Version 6.1 of True Crypt was released two days ago and it has – again – added interesting features to the encryption software. The major improvement of this release affects Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating systems. It is now possible to encrypt non system partitions on those operating systems without losing the data on those partitions. That feature is unfortunately not available in previous operating systems such as Windows XP.

To encrypt a non-system partition and retain the data of the partition one would have to follow the path
Create Volume’ > ‘Encrypt a non-system partition’ > ‘Standard volume’ > ‘Select Device’ > ‘Encrypt partition in place’ in True Crypt.

Another interesting addition is the support of keyfiles on security tokens and smart cards that comply with the PKCS #11 standard. Text output of the True Crypt bootloader can now be suppressed or customized.

A complete list of changes and updates is available in the True Crypt release notes on the True Crypt homepage.