Storing sensitive files on an unencrypted USB thumb drive means anyone who finds it can access everything on it. This Free Upskill Challenge by Naomi Brockwell covers three ways to create your own encrypted USB drives: The Apricorn Aegis Secure Key, the Kingston IronKey Vault Privacy 50C, and VeraCrypt. Find out how they compare, which best fits your threat model, and step-by-step setup tutorials for each.
Price = FREE!
Storing sensitive files on a normal USB drive is like writing your diary on a sticky note and leaving it in a taxi. If someone gets the drive, they get the files. No hacking required.
Encryption solves this!
It locks your files so that even if someone steals the drive, all they see is scrambled nonsense. There are a few ways to do this, and this challenge will walk you through the main options, how they compare, and how to set them up.
Goals for UC – Encrypted USB Drives
In this Upskill Challenge, you’ll learn:
- Why USB encryption matters and what it protects against
- How hardware-encrypted drives (Apricorn and Kingston) work and differ from each other
- How VeraCrypt compares as a software-based alternative
- How to choose the right tool based on your threat model
- Step-by-step setup tutorials for both hardware-encrypted drives
What’s an Upskill Challenge (UC)?
A UC is a CTF-style, bite-sized lesson from the JHT Team, our courseware developers as well as “friends” of JHT. They are meant to be short and to the point. UCs focus on a single tool or concept and are helpful in quickly providing useful skills that might be prerequisites for other types of educational content on the platform.
A UC should be 10 – 30 minutes of student time and have no VMs. There are quizzes to make sure that the content is understood.
Prerequisites for UC – Encrypted USB Drives
UCs assume no knowledge at all! They’re meant to be completely self-contained, so all of the answers are in the lesson. No outside research is required.
