Big news from the TrueCrypt Foundation yesterday...the new version of TrueCrypt (v5.0) supports full disk encryption and/or encryption of the system partition using pre-boot authentication. In addition, Mac OS X support was added and a GUI interface for the Linux version is now included. From the TrueCrypt web site:

"TrueCrypt can on-the-fly encrypt a system partition or entire system drive, i.e. a partition or drive where Windows is installed and from which it boots (a TrueCrypt-encrypted system drive may also contain non-system partitions, which are encrypted as well)."

Full disk encryption only works for drives with Windows installed in this new version (including Vista). This is great news considering TrueCrypt is a free, open source encryption solution. Now there is no excuse for companies to deploy full disk encryption to laptops containing customer, employee, or other confidential data. I personally use TrueCrypt with my USB thumb drive and is simply the best mobile encryption solution I have ever used (and it's free).

Stay tuned for my review of TrueCrypt's full disk encryption in an upcoming article.

Download the new version of TrueCrypt here.