Password/Encryption for drives

[liberty610]

Hello,

I've been looking around a little, but I'm not sure I have the answer I need.

I run a small project studio where I do video and audio production work. One of my biggest requests from people is to capture old family videos for DVD, Blu Ray, or just digital storage.

I haven't ever faced issues before, but with having other people's personal moments, I would like to be more professional about it.

I am running Windows 10 pro, and I was wondering if there is software out there that locks drives, or can lock certain folders on a drive with a password. I'm also wondering if days encryption is something I should be looking into? And are there different options or ways it needs done if it's an ssd, hdd, or external hard drive?

The only thing I really know how to do with hard drives is defrag them (trim control on ssd drives) and wipe them before getting rid of them, and I have WD software that tests their current health. So I'm looking into more for my drives. I would prefer free software options, but if there is a really good standard out there, I wouldn't mind a small Bill attached to it.

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[mudpuppet]

Bit locker works just fine to encrypt the drive, requiring you to unlock the drive before it will even load into windows. Obviously from there you can also have your own account and password to prevent some random person walking up to the system and snooping through files. That said, you can always remember to lock your PC (ctrl+alt+delete and then Lock This Computer) when you get up or if you walk away, the displays goes out and locks automatically. For what it sounds like you're doing, as long as you're working in a controlled environment and the PC is away from other customers, I don't think you really need to invest too much in it (Especially if you're talking about family videos being anything from birthdays to homemade porn. If you aren't handling personal information like financial, insurance or medical data I don't think you need to invest money into extra protection. Just be security conscious and take a look into some of the steps mentioned.

Side note, I know my external HDD requires a password to log in and access the information and the password is required after every restart, so even some software that will require a password wouldn't require it every time you try to access the folders on it. If it only needs the password once per login (and is an internal drive) there's not a huge point to it in my opinion.

 

[liberty610]

Thanks for the reply! I do work in a controlled environment, but there are times when I have musicians in, and I do leave the room from time to to time, but I can't lock my computer because they are working on things like guitar tones which requires using on screen software. So I can't always lock my computer. Any other time I do.

I was kind of odd that you mentioned the homemade porn ordeal ha. I have had a couple of those as well. And that would also be another reason why i would like to use encryption. I have 2 hot swap-able drive bays on my PC where the drives can easily be taken out. So, I would like to look into further of using this bit-locker thing or any other software that's out. I'm just not sure how to use it, as I have never done it before.

I looked up on youtube, and saw someone using it where you can unlock it with a USB key, but I would really rather do a password ordeal.

 

[mudpuppet]

We bitlocker our laptops for the sales guys when they travel. In this case, when they power the laptop on, they are prompted to enter their PIN to access the drive, and only after that can Windows even boot up. Of course if you lose it or lock yourself out (too many wrong numbers) you'd be pretty screwed so there are a number of way to store the back up key. That key is about 36 digits long where as the pin you would use every day can be as little as 4 characters. If you aren't worried about the PC being taken away, then you're fine with something smaller/basic since you're biggest threat would be someone happening to guess it or trying to brute force it (trying passwords over and over till they guess it). Bitlocker is also part of windows so chances are it's on your system and would just need to go through all the steps for it. Encryption could take between 30 minutes to a few hours depending on the size of the drive.

I'm not familiar with anything off hand that would lock just a drive, but again I imagine there's plenty of software tools out there to lock access. With a removable drive, you have the password on there (with some brands/models) but you also have the portability you lack in an internal drive. Say you have musicians coming over to work, you can easily take that drive with you or store it under lock and key in a drawer etc for things that aren't meant for their eyes.

 

[liberty610]

Thanks for all the help mudpuppet. Should I back up the drives before using bit locker?

What does dhs have anything to do with this exactly?

 

[mudpuppet]

Trolls will troll?

Backing up your current information is never a bad thing, and since this is your first time going about this, is probably good practice. For bitlocker we try and make sure we get all the programs we need installed before turning bitlocker on. This gets the bulk of the encryption done at one time rather than having to encrypt new large chunks... say if you install Office after you already encrypted the drive. Remember too that it will encrypt the files etc, but that PIN is only prompted when you start the PC, if you leave it on 24/7 like so many people do, then you're still mainly relying on the account password you have set to access Windows. That said, you can also create another user account on the PC for the others who will be using it, so create an admin account for yourself, and then a user account for the others. That may take a bit of reading up on your part to understand the ins and outs, but would allow you to restrict some access on the other account (can use software but can't access certain folders etc).

 

[liberty610]

Trolls will troll?

Backing up your current information is never a bad thing, and since this is your first time going about this, is probably good practice. For bitlocker we try and make sure we get all the programs we need installed before turning bitlocker on. This gets the bulk of the encryption done at one time rather than having to encrypt new large chunks... say if you install Office after you already encrypted the drive. Remember too that it will encrypt the files etc, but that PIN is only prompted when you start the PC, if you leave it on 24/7 like so many people do, then you're still mainly relying on the account password you have set to access Windows. That said, you can also create another user account on the PC for the others who will be using it, so create an admin account for yourself, and then a user account for the others. That may take a bit of reading up on your part to understand the ins and outs, but would allow you to restrict some access on the other account (can use software but can't access certain folders etc).

Honestly, I'm not so much worried about the operating system drive as I am the other storage drives. My os drive is a 240gb ssd, and has pretty much only programs on it.

It's the other drives I'm concerned with. They hold all my data and saves that are associated with the programs.

So if I bitlock my storage drives but bit my os drive, did that cause issues? And on some of the drives I do large file transfers between with the drives themselves our the drives and usb items (HD video files for example).

Does the encryption make the file transfer times increase, or does it start the encryption after the file transfer is complete?

Also, does the encryption slow down other processes like video rendering? Our do the drives work as normal once their unlocked?

Thanks for all the help!

 

[mudpuppet]

Copied from the microsoft site...

~What happens if I add more files to an encrypted drive?
New files are automatically encrypted when you add them to a drive that uses BitLocker. However, if you copy these files to another drive or a different PC, they're automatically decrypted.

~Where can I use BitLocker?
BitLocker can encrypt the drive Windows is installed on (the operating system drive) as well as fixed data drives (such as internal hard drives). You can also use BitLocker To Go to help protect all files stored on a removable data drive (such as an external hard drive or USB flash drive).


While this is the page from windows 8, the same should still be valid for 7 as it's prebuilt in again we use it at work. It will work differently for you as your OS drive would run as normal, but same basic concept that would require a password to access the other drive and would encrypt the data. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/bitlocker-drive-encryption

As far as video rendering, I don't think you'd have any real issue with performance as it isn't encrypting every moment a new input is recognized (I don't believe anyway). Unlocking wouldn't decrypt the information on it, rather give you access to the encrypted data, so once it's unlocked, it should work as normal, though changes and saves may take a little longer. You're working with a few things I don't have a lot of experience with so I'm going off my best guess and relateable experience.