Encrypting flash drives with UsbCryptFormat

USB storage sticks, SD cards, and external hard drives are essential tools in the daily life of almost every PC user. However, there are some drawbacks to these small storage media: They can disappear pretty easily, for example. If your device gets into the wrong hands, unprotected data is typically visible to all who want to look at it. To protect data found on removable storage devices, all you need is a Linux PC and the encryption software UsbCryptFormat [1].

Basics

UsbCryptFormat uses the LUKS method that runs on Linux to encrypt data. LUKS is designed so that it saves the information necessary for decryption in the header of an encrypted partition. Up to eight keys and diverse metadata can be stored in the header. The advantage of this method is that it allows the user to open an encrypted storage device on a computer system even if the system does not run UsbCryptFormat. In that case, the user just needs the cryptsetup package to call the software. Most of the current Linux distributions include this package as part of the standard installation.

Getting Started

UsbCryptFormat is distributed under a GPL and comes as a DEB package for Debian, Ubuntu, and their derivatives that you can download from the project website. Because UsbCryptFormat consists entirely of Bash scripts, the source code is practically built into the system. Users running distributions that have RPM package management can also take advantage of UsbCryptFormat. Here you should first install the program alien that is available in the software repositories of most of the distributions.

The next step is to start the program in the terminal using the following command:

alien -r -v --scripts usbcryptformat_12.05.20_all.deb

The software converts the Debian package into RPM format so you can install it on your system.

When installing UsbCryptFormat, the package creates the entry Encrypt external storage media in the menu structure on your desktop. Clicking the entry starts the program with the appropriate administrative rights. If the application does not appear, you should check the package administration to determine whether the zenity package manager is installed on your computer. UsbCryptFormat uses this program to display its dialogs in the graphical desktop environment.

It's also a good idea to check the corresponding menu entry for the correct command syntax for invoking the software. In other distributions, you may need to replace the su-to-root command, which only comes up in Ubuntu, with either kdesu , which is used on the KDE desktop, or the gksu command for Gnome work environments. In both cases, you should remove the command parameters -X -c . UsbCryptFormat should start without any problems after this preparatory work.