Password on USB Drive

MitchRapp

Hey guys
I've searched a bit on the net, but I know for a fact you guys and girls at DH know your S&#T better than anyone...

I am looking for a simple tool: I want to put a password on a USB drive.
I JUST want a password... I don't need to encrypt files. It's not much for super-duper security ... just so people without much computer knowledge at work don't accidentally stumble on information.

Basically:

- small application
- password on usb key so when you plug it in, you need to enter a password or else you're out of luck
- possibly an autorun on the drive... nothing to install on your computer
- free or cheap license (work is paying anyways)


thanks !

Tipstaff

Depending on the USB drive you have, there might be something from that manufacturer already, so I'd check the website for your manufacturers flash drive, and see what they have for software.

Personally I've used a program called Cryptainer. What the program does is create a virtual protected volume using hard drive space on your PC, plus installs the secured dlls needed. It looks like a file, and the contents of which are only accessible once you run the Cyptainer software. Once you do, and input your password, all the Cyptainer files become drive letters... virtual volumes, and you just access the files on it directly. Close the program, and you close/protect that volume. What's interesting about the program is that once you have it installed you get access to the mobile version. Install the mobile version to a flash pen drive, run it from there (being sure to close the desktop version), and you can create a protected volume on the flash drive. You need to do this on the pen drive on the system that has the desktop version, but you can use the pen drive anywhere after that. Just run the Cyptainer program on the pen drive, insert your password, and it'll do the same thing as the PC version. The limitation of the free version is that it only allows "vaults" or protected volumes of 25mb, while the paid versions allow up to 2.5GB for the basic version, and higher for more expensive ones. If you have a pen drive larger 2GB go with the PE version.

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MitchRapp

dang... I just wanted an AUTORUN that basically asks for a password when you plug in the USB drive/key/card
there must be such an app.... I don't care about encryption or whatever. Just one password.

mkk

Autorun is so easy to circumvent and it might even be disabled or not working on some systems.

Tipstaff

Creating an autorun for Cryptainer is easy though. Just create a file called autorun.inf, and put the proper things into that file in order to launch the cryptainermobile.exe file. Every time you plug the USB drive in it will automatically load the program (or at least bring up the autorun options), and if it's setup to be protected it will ask you for the password. BTW, just a note about using an autorun feature on a USB drive. A lot viruses and whatnot transmit themselves by adding autorun functions to removable drives. As such anti-virus and anti-malware/anti-spyware software are designed to scan, block, and or delete such functions from/on USB drives. So, having such a file on a USB pen drive could be blocked by such software.

The thing you have to understand is that you have to encrypt something in order to have a password. The 2 go hand in hand. The easy way would be to individually password protect files, which you can do with Word documents, PDF files, and such, or to put everything into password protected archive files using WinRAR, or something similar. Problem here is that they are easily crackable. Damn easy, and things become a bit inconvenient having to have WinRAR or whatever program installed in order to protect new data that you add to the pen.

The better way to do an entire USB drive, in this case, would be to use something a bit more complicated. In this case we create a virtual partition on the drive using Cryptainer, which is in fact a file, and that file is encrypted with either an AES (256bit) or Blowfish (448bit) algorithm that requires a password to access. So, run one program, input one password, get access to everything. The only catch, as I mentioned, is that you are limited to the size of that protected partition to the level of the program you have, that being free = small partition, paid = bigger partitions. With Cryptainer PE you can use up to 25.5GB virtual partitions, meaning you can use the entire pen drive as a virutal drive leaving just the Cryptainer program outside of that protection.

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MitchRapp

yeah so that was too complicated for the novice users ... I told them to lock up the hard drive in a drawer over night.

problem solved (haha)
thanks guys

The_Neon_Cowboy

I know I'm late to the show but my suggestion?

Flash drives are pretty inexpensive anymore if they look around at most
retailers there now drives that come with programs preloaded on the flash
drive to secure the files with a password. (Which does require some minor
encryption behind the scenes or the files can't be protected) But all they will
see is a popup program when they insert it and enter their password to access
their files.

There are also inexpensive devices called a “Thumb drive Lock” available
that hooks and hold onto the end of the drive and require a combination to
remove it without destroying the drive.

Both that might be a little bit better than just locking it in a drawer. Which it
can easily can be forgotten to unplug it and secure the device leavening their
data unsecure. If it really important data someone could always break into
the drawer if they know it’s there. Or that one data they get busy and leave
it out it get compromised. It really should be secured with a pass worded
encryption to protect it from prying eyes.

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