Bought Win10 Pro to get free BitLocker encryption for my external memory drives.

 

I've seen people online claim this can be hacked - is this true? 

Is this a reliable and secure way of encrypting external memory drives?


Thank you

For the average person it should be safe enough. If you are worried that governments want your data you might want to choose something else, because backdoors could potentially exist.

If you want to be as safe as it gets use VeraCrypt instead.

What on Earth have you got on there that  needs that much protection????

19 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

What on Earth have you got on there that  needs that much protection????

Same as everyone else - a collection of porn to hide from the wife. 

Just now, recom273 said:

Same as everyone else - a collection of porn to hide from the wife. 

How stupid am I?.......I just use FUNTER.

7 minutes ago, Surelynot said:

How stupid am I?.......I just use FUNTER.

 

Cheers, I have never heard of that before. 
 

 

1 minute ago, recom273 said:

 

Cheers, I have never heard of that before. 
 

 

Very simple...free....just hides files......

29 minutes ago, jackdd said:

If you want to be as safe as it gets use VeraCrypt instead.

VeraCrypt was forked from the last version of TrueCrypt that was released before the developers shut it down. The scuttlebut at the time was that the feds were forcing them to put backdoors into truecrypt so they could unlock anything. Truecrypt developers decided it was better to shut down than put the backdoors in. 

 

One has to assume all the current encryption systems have backdoors, including veracrypt.

 

I use truecrypt v7.1a, the last complete version before they shut it down. 

Thanks

5 hours ago, gargamon said:

I use truecrypt v7.1a, the last complete version before they shut it down. 

 

After the bugaboo about TC started, I couldn't find 7.1a anywhere on the net so I zipped up the installation I had at the time.  I did a search on it a few weeks ago when the subject came up on another thread, and was able to find it in a few places.  If anyone is at all interested they should grab it while they can. 

And next time someone inquires why you save freely available software . . .

 

5 hours ago, Surelynot said:

What on Earth have you got on there that  needs that much protection????

 

All a person needs is your real name and your birthday to make a mess of your life, should they want to.

 

I use Bitlocker on several computers together with the build in TPM modules.

Once setup no attention is needed and it works all automatic.

 

For people who are not familiar with this: The TPM has a code which is unique to that PC. If you use a HDD or SSD in that PC all works like normal. If you take it out and try to use it in another PC you need a code - a very long code.

You can save that code when Bitlocker is setup. I like it because it does not change everyday life and if anybody removes a HDD that person won't be able to get the data.

 

If someone only wants to hide a few files then I am sure there are easier options.

 

You can read up on best practices for BitLocker.

 

If you have any doubts about the BitLocker encryption you can have an extra layer of encryption by using TrueCrypt/VeraCrypt to create an encrypted container, using a different password, on your BitLocker encrypted drive. If you plug the BitLocker encrypted flash drive into a USB port you need to input a password to access the files on the drive. If there is a TC/VC encrypted container on the drive you will need to run TC/VC and input another password to access those files.

 

If you're really really paranoid you can even encrypt that TC/VC container with the EFS (Encrypting File System) available in Win10 Pro and then export the password protected encryption/decryption key, again with a different password, needed to decrypt the file.

 

Triple encryption requiring 3 different passwords. Problem solved :-)

problem is not solved unless one is using an open-source operating system ????

closed source operating systems such as Windows have backdoors with a much higher probability than open source ones.

A few years back I picked up a CD with some, err, inappropriate programs on it.  Included was an entire subdir of utilities for cracking pw protected zip files, at least a dozen of them.  Never tried to see if any of them worked, but the fact that there is so much interest in this should tell you something.

 

 

 

20 hours ago, fdsa said:

problem is not solved unless one is using an open-source operating system ????

closed source operating systems such as Windows have backdoors with a much higher probability than open source ones.

Can you provide some links with proof of backdoors built into Windows operating systems (clean install)? Particularly relating to BitLocker and EFS (Encrypting File System).

5 hours ago, KeeTua said:

 

Can you provide some links with proof of backdoors built into Windows operating systems (clean install)? Particularly relating to BitLocker and EFS (Encrypting File System).

I don't know any backdoors and even if I knew I would not share them in the public.

2 hours ago, fdsa said:

I don't know any backdoors and even if I knew I would not share them in the public.

Yeah I don't know any either and with over 1 billion MS Windows users if backdoors exist it would be the best kept secret ever.

exactly! Snowden is being chased for a reason.

This is in my field of expertise (IT Consultant). Without boring everyone to death, we don't touch anything closed source and any encryption we need to do is done with GPG for static files, and out inter-office networks are secured with OpenVPN tunnels using open source ciphers. . . All Microsoft products are banned on our network.

 

You can make whatever you want of that. This factoid is shared FoC.

 

 

 

Thanks for the info

 

All my data disks are Bitlocker encrypted (20 character key) then within one I have a Veracrypt file based volume (different 20 character key) and within that volume all files are encrypted with Axcrypt

(yet another 20 Character key).

 

Apart from my banking details do I have anything to hide - NO

 

Why do I do it - For the hell of it - I'm bloody minded and whilst we are on the subject I have no known social media accounts - far too dangerous!

Just to add to the previous post from me - The issue with Bitlocker and Veracrypt is that the encryption is volume based so if you have entered your key to open the volume to use the files on your system and each individual important file isn't encrypted then a hacker has access to the unencrypted files that's why my important (financial) files are then individually encrypted.

 

And 1 final word NOTHING (given time and luck) is uncrackable - all you can do is make it as difficult as possible.

As I said I do it for the hell of it!

On 5/24/2021 at 4:59 PM, jackdd said:

If you want to be as safe as it gets use VeraCrypt instead.

Good recommendation!

Very interesting information

 

 

What do you think of these compression and encryption software

Are theyg enerally hackable?

 

7-Zip Opensource

Zipware

Thank you

Very interesting information

 

 

What do you think of these compression and encryption software

Are theyg enerally hackable?

 

7-Zip Opensource

Zipware

 

There are software you can download that claim to be able to crack any of these and get the password.

Thank you

On 5/24/2021 at 10:04 PM, Surelynot said:

What on Earth have you got on there that  needs that much protection????

A jigsaw of personal details  which  when put together can be used for ID theft

Secret plans for world domination.

7zip uses AES-256 cipher which is impossible to hack with brute force using today's computers. In the future with quantum computing maybe, but not now.

Thanks

So all those software available online to 'get your password back' are frauds?

 

 

BTW 

I was able to hack MS Bitlocker, which is very easy to do, the password can be found in a Note file.

 

14 hours ago, ozimoron said:

7zip uses AES-256 cipher which is impossible to hack with brute force using today's computers. In the future with quantum computing maybe, but not now.

while the AES-256 cipher is really difficult (NOT impossible) to hack, it is used only to encrypt the data, not the archive header. And to get the data you do not need to bruteforce the AES cipher but just SHA256 hash of the key which is stored in the archive header.

And SHA256 is quite easy to bruteforce.

 

 

14 hours ago, toast1 said:

So all those software available online to 'get your password back' are frauds?

the paid software is most likely yes, the real deal is usually free and open source, such as  https://hashcat.net/hashcat/