MAC Encryption

Apple provides, happily so, a built in program called FileVault for mac encryption purposes, the intention of this built in software is to, what is termed transparently encrypt and/or decrypt data that would be in any one users home folder. It would be assumed that this would be sufficient for any mac encryption that you would need for things such as your history of browsing, photograph thumbnails, personal and business data or photographs and videos, music files and so forth. However, this assumption would only be partially correct.

For instance with the built in mac encryption things like your music files or anything that would reside on your desktop and your preferences, for instance, would be properly encrypted. It should not be assumed that mac encryption will automatically encrypt running applications, or that those applications will properly store, what could be sensitive information inside that home folder that FileVault encrypts for mac encryption, often times depending on the browser you use, perhaps such as Safari, which is a popular mac browser, stores previews in visual form in various folders, not just the home folder, and other applications that you use do the same thing.

Mac encryption is dependent on encrypting the entire root volume, because while a lot of logs on your system are set up with a temporary directory, those directories leak information. Another way for mac encryption is to make sure that your log files are not stored on a disk, and you can do that simply by turning off syslog, which can also be helpful, but not a total solution for mac encryption.

Most users are not programmers, so some of these methods might be scary to the casual user who just wants to make sure that their personal data is mac encrypted and there are software solutions that can help with that, along with the built in FileVault system.

A quick Google search will land you some good open source code for mac encryption, this open source is free and often times better than software from a shareware site.

The open source code for mac encryption essentially mounts a virtual encrypted drive, but then mounts it as a real disk, can encrypt an entire partition or a storage device. It is automatic and in real-time.
Mac encryption open source can along with FileVault be all you need for security of your personal data.


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