Do not use USB sticks that are not encrypted, unless publishing the data on the stick is not a problem for you.- You can encrypt disks using Windows 10 on-board tools.
- Alternatively, you can encrypt disks with opern source tools such as Veracrypt .
How can you encrypt a USB stick with Windows 10 ?
- Insert your memory stick.
- Start Bitlocker (Control Panel/System and Security/Bitlocker Drive Encryption).
- There you will see Removable Disk – Bitlocker To Go and your stick with Bitlocker disabled.
- Click Enable Bitlocker.
- Enter a secure password (see last expert tip).
- Save the recovery key (or print it ). You can only access the stick with this key if the password is lost.
- Confirm the other questions and your stick is encrypted.
- You can now write to the stick.
- If the stick is to be used on another system, you will be asked for the password when opening it. Only on old, no longer officially supported Windows systems, Bitlocker is not available.
- The encrypted stick can be accessed from Max or Linux using external tools.
Don’t forget that all data carriers should be encrypted, this includes notebooks, external hard drives etc.