• Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    Encrypting OS X Server 5 Volumes In El Capitan

    Encrypting a volume in OS X couldn’t be easier. In this article, we will look at three ways to encrypt OS X El Capitan volumes in OS X Server 5. The reason there are three ways is that booted volumes and non-booted volumes have different methods for enabling encryption. Encrypting Attached Storage For non-boot volumes, just control-click or right-click on them and then click on Encrypt “VOLUMENAME” where the name of the volume is in quotes. When prompted, provide an encryption password for the volume, verify that password and if you so choose, provide a hint. Once the encryption process has begun, the entry previously clicked on says Encrypting “VOLUMENAME” where…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    Encrypt Mavericks and Mavericks Server

    Encrypting a volume in OS X Mavericks couldn’t be easier. In this article, we will look at three ways to encrypt OS X Mavericks volumes. The reason there are three ways is that booted volumes and non-booted volumes have different methods for enabling encryption. Encrypting Attached Storage For non-boot volumes, just control-click or right-click on them and then click on Encrypt “VOLUMENAME” where the name of the volume is in quotes. When prompted, provide an encryption password for the volume, verify that password and if you so choose, provide a hint. Once the encryption process has begun, the entry previously clicked on says Encrypting “VOLUMENAME” where the name of the…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    Encrypting Volumes in OS X Mountain Lion

    Encrypting a volume in OS X Mountain Lion couldn’t be easier. In this article, we will look at three ways to encrypt OS X Lion volumes. The reason there are three ways is that booted volumes and non-booted volumes have different methods for enabling encryption. The third way to enable encryption on a volume is to do so through Encrypting Attached Storage For non-boot volumes, just control-click or right-click on them and then click on Encrypt “VOLUMENAME” where the name of the volume is in quotes. When prompted, provide an encryption password for the volume, verify that password and if you so choose, provide a hint. Once the encryption process…

  • Mac Security

    Cryptix: Encryption Made Easy

    Cryptix is a nice little app available on the App Store that allows you to encrypt and decrypt files using a variety of algorithms. However, while an easy to use encryption tool, it’s actually an even better learning tool for figuring out how various types of encryption techniques actually work. When you first open Cryptix, you’ll see a list of supported algorithms for encrypting files and passphrases. That part is simple enough, but click on the Tools icon in the toolbar. Here, you’ll see a number of features along the sidebar, including Checksum, which performs a quick checksum of files dragged on top of the green arrow and tracks hashes,…

  • Mac OS X,  Mac OS X Server,  Mac Security,  Mass Deployment

    Programatically Encrypt Virtual Memory

    Encrypting virtual memory is a request I see more and more.  And touching a large number of machines to enable it en masse is a bit labor intensive.  The setting is stored in the /Library/Preferences/com.apple.virtualMemory.plist, in the UseEncryptedSwap key, a boolean key that can have either a yes or a no as the value.  By default it is disabled.  In order to enable it you would then use the following defaults command: defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.virtualMemory UseEncryptedSwap -bool yes To then disable encrypted virtual memory programatically: defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.virtualMemory UseEncryptedSwap -bool no I recently had a request to do this on systems that were already running full disk encryption.  It worked…