How far would you like to go to safeguard your Mac from unauthorised access? If the answer to that question is, as far as it takes, you’d probably be interested in knowing about FileVault – a highly advanced encryption mechanism that allows you to apply an extra layer of security to your Mac HDD as well as Mac based external USBs. Stay with us as we cover the salient features of FileVault and describe the process that you can use to protect your internal and external hard drives with this utility.

In technical terms a self-signed certificate is one signed with its own. This term has nothing to do with the identity of the person or organization that actually performed the signing procedure. How to get security certificate for website mac chrome download. So when you go to the site, you get the scary looking screen that warns you that your connection might not actually be secure (because self-signed certificates are more vulnerable to a ). The reason doesn’t trust this by default is that it has no way to verify that the certificate is being sent by the server that generated the key, and therefore can’t ensure that the server actually is the one that the certificate claims it is.

How to Easily Encrypt Files on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Chris Hoffman @chrisbhoffman August 22, 2014, 6:40am EDT. BitLocker To Go can encrypt a USB flash drive or another external media device. BitLocker can also be used with a VHD file, creating an encrypted container file that contains encypted files. To format your USB key, plug it in, open Disk Utility (/Applications/Utilities/), select it in the left-hand menu, then click on the Partition tab. Select '1 Partition' from the Volume Scheme dropdown, and select 'MS-DOS (FAT)' in the Format dropdown. Click Apply (remember this will erase the USB stick).

Sponsored Links How to Encrypt Mac HDD and External USB in Mac OS X El Capitan using FileVault What is FileVault? Let’s start with a brief introduction. FileVault is a full-disk encryption scheme that uses XTS-AES 128 encryption to help prevent unauthorized access to your Mac. First introduced in 2003, the scheme encrypts and decrypts Mac volumes on-the-fly.

When the Mac is shut down, FileVault encrypts it and locks it with a password. To access the system, the user must key in the password to unlock and decrypt it. To use FileVault safely, you must always remember your password correctly.

You can choose to backup your password on Apple server. The backup is protected by three security questions. To access the backed up password, you’ll have to answer the security questions. The current version of FileVault is known as FileVault 2, and it is an improved version of the original or “Legacy FileVault.” FileVault 2 cannot be used with every Mac and all drive configurations.

It can only be enabled on a single drive containing OS X and Recovery partitions. Sponsored Links In addition to encrypting Mac hard disk drive, FileVault 2 also helps you encrypt removable drives. This allows you to protect your Time Machine backup drives. Additional advantages of the scheme include the ability to instantly wipe all encryption keys and all data from your Mac, thus making all information completely inaccessible. It is thus quite a handy utility to protect your Mac and the crucial data on it. Though it’s probably the most efficient way of making sure your data is always safe, FileVault 2 has its drawbacks, degraded performance being a major one. Applying encryption and decryption on-the-fly takes its toll on the processor and systems with older Core CPUs experience significant performance lag.

An aspect that you should take care of while using FileVault 2 is that it is transparent to anyone once the system is logged in. This means that once you’ve unlocked and decrypted the Mac with your password if anyone gains access to the machine all your data could very well be stolen. Hence, you must ensure that you don’t leave your Mac unattended if it is unlocked. To fully lock the encrypted drive, the best way is a full shutdown of the Mac.

How to Enable FileVault on Mac HDD. Sponsored Links Step #6.

Click on the “Turn On FileVault” button. If more than one user has the account on your Mac, each user will need to key in their password to unlock the disk. The Mac will display a message for this when you activate FileVault. Click the “Enable User” button and enter the user’s password.

All user accounts added after enabling FileVault are automatically enabled. Note: By default, FileVault uses your account password to encrypt the drive. In case you forget it, a recovery key is generated to allow you to still unlock the drive. However, this key is displayed only once, so if and when it happens, make a note of the key and store it safely.