Uses for Filevault

Comments: 5 Responses to “Uses for Filevault”

Gary Rosenzweig

15 years ago

So you have your files on your hard drive. They are private so you set a login password for your user account. If someone steals your Mac, they can't log on without your password, so they can't see you files.
BUT -- the files are just sitting there on the drive. They can rip the drive out and hook the drive up as an external drive to another computer, then read the files. Or, even forgetting about the files, they can read the blocks of data and scan for things that look like credit card numbers, etc.
File Vault encrypts your entire user folder. It is transparent to you, because OS X will decrypt and file it needs on the fly, and encrypt them as you save files as well. But if someone has you hard drive, they will only see encrypted files in your user folder, not plain readable files.
Does that clear it up?
Use it only if security is a priority for you. Like if you have state or corporate secrets on your Mac and are required by your employer to secure them. Things like that. It will slow down your Mac, particularly when writing lots of data, like video editing.

Ken

15 years ago

Can I only encrypt certain file instead of the whole hard drive?

Gary Rosenzweig

15 years ago

Yes. See episode 46: http://macmost.com/protecting-files-with-a-password.html

Ken

15 years ago

Nice... thanks

Ryko

15 years ago

Thanks for that, it makes it all clear now :)