It's not hard to lose a USB flash drive; it's even easier to steal one. If you're the victim of such a theft, panic is understandable. There could be work documents, private pictures, your kid's birthday party video, or amazing notes for a NaNoWriMo novel—anything—on that drive. It's unlikely to be the only copy—this is the age of online backup and sync, after all. But if you're crazy enough to trust your most important, irreplaceable data to a device that's even easier to misplace or forget than your keys, at least make sure that data is secure.
LaCie Prave-Public is perfect if you’re looking for a reliable and fast encryption tool to use on the go. What’s more, it’s available for both Windows and Mac OS X, and is backed by the name of Seagate, which just makes things better.
What you'll need is software for encrypting the data, and that software has to be portable, in that it runs on any PC without installation, since it will likely run from the flash drive itself. Note, these solutions also work with any external hard drive, for the most part, plus your much-harder-to-steal internal hard disk drives (HDDs) and solid-state drives (SSDs).
Encryption Software
The first choice should always be to try a free software solution. A current favorite these days is VeraCrypt. It's free, open-source, and available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It lets you create a volume/vault on your USB flash drive that only you can access, or encrypt an existing drive (as long as it isn't system necessary, like your C: drive), or optionally, encrypt the entire system drive so anyone who tries to install programs or read/write files would need to enter a password each time. That last one is overkill; stick to the first few options.
The volumes created by VeraCrypt can be standard—they're visible but only the person with the password can get access—or hidden. With the latter, even if you're forced to give up the password, it's unlikely anyone can find your data to get access anyway.
When you go to install VeraCrypt, there's an option to Extract. Do that and extract the files to your USB Drive. That makes a portable version, so you don't need to have VeraCrypt on every system that you'll plug the drive into—but it does have to be on an administror-level log-in on the PC.
The VeraCrypt site has an excellent step-by-step tutorial. Another free option is CipherShed; both are off-shoots of the late, great TrueCrypt. BitLocker, which comes with select versions of Windows (the non-'Home' versions), can also be used to secure USB or external drives. If you prefer to pay, check out the $12.99 EncryptStick, which comes for Mac and Windows.
Secure Flash Drives
There are millions of USB flash drives around—I have three of various capacities littering my desk at the moment. So using third-party software to secure their contents makes great sense. But if you want security from the start, there are plenty of drives that come with security built right into the hardware.
A few select flash drives have a number pad right on the drive itself. You enter a PIN code before you can access the contents. They include the Aegis Secure Key 3.0, a $65 flash drive at 4GB with FIPS 140-2 Level 3 encryption (pictured right; it also comes in 8, 16, and 32GB versions).
If you think reaching for the number pad is an issue, there's also a few biometric USB flash drives. IronKey, by Imation, is a pretty well-known name for secure drives; it's F200 with built-in finger-swipe (pictured above) and throws in multi-factor authentication for your files. The price, of course, is much higher, with the base model with 8GB starting at $189 direct and shooting to a price of $649 for 64GB! It gets good marks for security, but most reviews also say its performance is lacking.
But you don't need to have anything fancy built into the hardware of your USB flash drive to be secure. Several models come with encryption software. It's held in a partition of the drive itself and looks to Windows like a CD, so it can auto-play activate when inserted, giving you instant access. Some options include the Kanguru Defender 2000 (4GB for $69); IronKey F150 (8GB for $139), Kingston DataTraveler Vauilt Privacy 3.0 (4GB for $35), and several more. All of these listed are base models; you can always get more capacity by paying more. For savings, be sure to compare on Google or using Amazon.
Encryption Tool For Windows
Hard drive encryption is an integral step for anyone looking to secure their data. It is a process which will go a step beyond regular password security and will ensure that a hard drive remain secure only to the user. However, it is important to note that once a hard drive is encrypted, ITS can not remove the encryption so any files that cannot be accessed may remain that way until the user themselves can access them.
There are both paid and free software for OSX and WIndows, this guide will focus mainly on OSX 10.6 and above and Windows 7 and above.
Note: Drive encryption may require you to format your drive.
Apple Disk Encryption (File Vault)
Microsoft Windows BitLocker (free)
Alternative Encrypting Applications.
If the default operating system encryption methods don't work for you or you want something a little more secure or efficient, there are a few other third-party applications out there for your convenience. Some recommendations include: