How To Create An Encrypted Dmg

Apr 03, 2018 You can create an encrypted disk image using the built-in Disk Utility. To be fair, you can also create an encrypted container using the built-in BitLocker feature on Windows, but that requires you have a Professional or Enterprise edition. The Mac trick we’re talking about here works on any Mac.

Select version:

Select version:

Disk Utility User Guide

When you format an internal or external storage device, you can encrypt and protect it with a password. If you encrypt an internal device, you must enter a password to access the device and its information. If you encrypt an external device, you must enter the password when you connect the device to your computer.

How To Create An Encrypted Dmg Download

Important: If you encrypt an external storage device, you can’t connect it to an AirPort base station for Time Machine backups.

Create Encrypted Dmg Mac

To encrypt and protect the device with a password using Disk Utility, you must erase the device first. If the device contains files you want to save, be sure to copy them to another storage device or volume.

1. If the device contains any files you want to save, copy them to another storage device or volume.

2. In the Disk Utility app on your Mac, choose View > Show All Devices.

3. In the sidebar, select the storage device you want to encrypt.

4. Click the Erase button in the toolbar.

5. Enter a name for the volume.

6. Click the Scheme pop-up menu, then choose GUID Partition Map.

7. Click the Format pop-up menu, then choose an encrypted file system format.

8. Enter and verify a password, then click Choose.

   To change the password later, select the volume in the sidebar, then choose File > Change Password.

9. (Optional) If available, click Security Options, use the slider to choose how many times to write over the erased data, then click OK.

   Secure erase options are available only for some types of storage devices. If the Security Options button is not available, you can’t use Disk Utility to perform a secure erase on the storage device.

   Writing over the data three times meets the U.S. Department of Energy standard for securely erasing magnetic media. Writing over the data seven times meets the U.S. Department of Defense 5220-22-M standard.

10. Click Erase, then click Done.

You can encrypt your data without erasing it by turning on FileVault in the Security & Privacy pane of System Preferences (see Encrypt Mac data with FileVault).

You can also encrypt a disk and protect it with a password without erasing it. See Encrypt disks or memory cards to protect your Mac information.

How To Create An Encrypted Dmg File

A dmg file is a compressed file structure, capable of containing folders, files, etc. Dmg files can be used for a variety of purposes, from encrypting a home directory (ie – FileVault) to encrypting a file structure manually. A dmg file can be encrypted fairly simply. From Disk Utility, create a dmg file by clicking on the File menu and selecting New and then Blank Disk Image. This will bring up a screen where you can provide a name for your home folder and a size, then select either AES 128 or AES 256, which is a bit slower.Go ahead and click on Create and then at the resultant password screen go ahead and provide a password to be used. And let’s just go ahead and uncheck the option to create an entry in Keychain for the password.If you would rather do so from the command line I covered how to do so in a previous post.Now let’s download Spartan, a tool built by Ryan Kubasiak. Now download a dictionary file. I just used one of these (and for expedience sake I paired down the contents to only have about 100 possible passwords, one of which was mine). Now go ahead and open Spartan, clicking on Go! at the splash screen.At the Choose a File screen, browse to and then select your password file, clicking Choose once you have done so. At the next Choose a File screen browse to and then select your dmg file which you would like to crack the password for. The password file will then be read into RAM and the password cracking will commence.According to the length of your password this could take a long, long time, but when it’s done you will have your password, assuming it was in the dictionary of passwords you used. Dictionary files can be downloaded from a variety of sources, some collections taking up gigabytes upon gigabytes of space and covering every possible keyboard combination. Therefore, the longer the password that you use and the more complex the password is, the longer it will take to break the encryption.“So, would your holiness care to change her password?” – The Plague