After that simply start the encryption process. If you have a Bitlocker enabled Windows all you need to do is right click on the USB drive in Explorer and select “Turn on bitlocker…”.Ĭhoose to use a password and select how you want to save the recovery key (password). You don’t need one of those versions to read an encrypted drive though and even XP can read it with the aid of a reader utility from Microsoft.īitlocker encrypts all the data on the drive using AES and asks for a password as soon as you plug in the drive or try to access it in Explorer, you cannot access or view the contents on the drive at all without the password. Only Windows Vista and 7 Ultimate/Enterprise, 8/8.1 Pro/Enterprise and Server 2008/2012 can create Bitlocked USB flash drives. The version for encrypting USB flash drives is called Bitlocker to Go but sadly Bitlocker is not available in all releases of Windows. Here we show you 5 tools that can encrypt your files and also offer a bit of added protection by hiding the files on the flash drive. There’s a few things you can do to make your flash drive data more secure, one is encrypting the data itself and then you can also hide the encrypted data so nobody else even knows it’s there.

Because of their portability and huge capacities, you can store lots of data and information on one and easily mix ordinary files with files that should not be open to anybody else who accesses to the drive.Ī few do, but many USB flash drives don’t come with any form of protection or security at all and because a USB drive can easily be lost or stolen, your data could end up in the wrong hands. This is especially so if you use one of those fantastic little inventions, the USB flash drive.

Privacy and security is a hot topic these days and users have to be very aware about the dangers of being too open with their personal files and private information like passwords and logins.

Encrypted usb flash drive