IT Security: Hard drive Encryption

Since mobile devices such as laptops, tablets and smartphones are usually small and highly transportable, they can easily be forgotten, lost or stolen. To prevent others from accessing your devices, make sure to switch it off when not using it and use hard drive encryption.

Since mobile devices such as laptops, tablets and smartphones are usually small and highly transportable, they can easily be forgotten, lost or stolen. The high resale value for these devices makes them highly desirable to thieves.

If your device falls into the hands of a third party, he or she may be able to start a different operating system and access your data without having to use login information. As a result, simple password-based access protection for your own operating system account is not sufficient to protect your data.

In addition to suffering economic damage, the loss of data confidentiality and integrity can be particularly serious. A third party could use a stolen IT device to gain access to confidential information or university IT resources.


Account information (e.g. saved when setting up an e-mail account) is also frequently stored on devices.


To prevent others from accessing your devices, make sure to switch it off when not using it and use hard drive encryption. The encryption of the entire system partition is almost transparent for the users. Only when booting do they have to authenticate themselves with an additional PIN number.

Instructions on how to activate the hard drive encryption