Scott Brown Consulting

A major, feature-rich update to the TrueCrypt disk encryption tool hit the wire yesterday, notably adding support for Intel’s on-die AES-NI instruction set in Westmere class processors and newer. The authors claim a juicy 4 to 8 times performance leap for hardware-accelerated AES over a pure software implementation. More »

A minor maintenance update to disk encryption tool TrueCrypt was released yesterday. The release notes cite bugfixes only, so this update may be viewed as optional for users already running at least TrueCrypt 6.1a, the last “highly recommended” maintenance update, absent those experiencing any specific issues. More »

The latest maintenance release of disk encryption tool TrueCrypt made general availability today, adding most notably updated operating system support, including support for Windows 7 and Mac OS X 10.6. The release notes don’t indicate anything terrifically critical, so this release may be viewed as optional for users already running at least TrueCrypt 6.1a, the last “highly recommended” maintenance update. That being said, I’ll be immediately updating all installations. More »

I previously discussed the merits of disk encryption as a countermeasure against the physical theft of portable computers and the leakage of private and confidential records that could ensue. But Full Disk Encryption is just scratching the surface of what can be done; the concept can and should be extended to all types of storage media, including portable media. I am currently using TrueCrypt’s encrypted file-container volume capabilities to create encrypted CD-R’s and USB memory sticks both as part of my own regular secure backup and data vaulting operations and in the implementation of secure backup and data portability solutions for my customers. More »

Having completed developing and testing a deployment procedure, I am pleased to make available to my customers a brand new service offering: Full Disk Encryption for laptops. More »