<title>VeraCrypt - Free Open source disk encryption with strong security for the Paranoid</title>
<metaname="description"content="VeraCrypt is free open-source disk encryption software for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. In case an attacker forces you to reveal the password, VeraCrypt provides plausible deniability. In contrast to file encryption, data encryption performed by VeraCrypt is real-time (on-the-fly), automatic, transparent, needs very little memory, and does not involve temporary unencrypted files."/>
<strong>Note to users who created volumes with 1.17 version of VeraCrypt or earlier: </strong><br/>
<spanstyle="color:#ff0000;">To avoid hinting whether your volumes contain a hidden volume or not, or if you depend on plausible deniability when using hidden volumes/OS, then you must recreate both the outer and hidden volumes including system encryption and hidden OS, discarding existing volumes created prior to 1.18a version of VeraCrypt.</span></li>
<li>Fix regression in Expander and Format when RAM encryption is enable that was causing volume headers to be corrupted.</li>
<li>Fix failure of Screen Readers (Accessibility support) to read UI by disabling newly introduced memory protection by default and adding a CLI switch (/protectMemory) to enable it when needed.</li>
<li>Add switch /signalExit to support notifying <ahref="https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/waitfor"target="_blank">WAITFOR</a> Windows command when VeraCrypt.exe exits if /q was specified in CLI (cf documentation for usage).</li>
<li>Don't display mount/dismount examples in help dialog for command line in Format and Expander.</li>
<li>Documentation and translation updates.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Linux:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Fix regression that limited the size available for hidden volumes created on disk or partition.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>MacOSX:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Fix regression that limited the size available for hidden volumes created on disk or partition.</li>
<li>clear AES key from stack memory when using non-optimized implementation. Doesn't apply to VeraCrypt official build (Reported and fixed by Hanno Böck)</li>
<li>Update Jitterentropy RNG Library to version 2.2.0</li>
<li>Start following IEEE 1541 agreed naming of bytes (KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB, PiB).</li>
<li>Various documentation enhancements.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Windows:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Fix possible local privilege escalation vulnerability during execution of VeraCrypt Expander (CVE-2019-19501)</li>
<li>MBR bootloader:
<ul>
<li>workaround for SSD disks that don't allow write operations in BIOS mode with buffers less than 4096 bytes.</li>
<li>Don't restore MBR to VeraCrypt value if it is coming from a loader different from us or different from Microsoft one.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>EFI bootloader:
<ul>
<li>Fix "ActionFailed" not working and add "ActionCancelled" to customize handling of user hitting ESC on password prompt</li>
<li>Fix F5 showing previous password after failed authentication attempt. Ensure that even wrong password value are cleared from memory.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Fix multi-OS boot compatibility by only setting VeraCrypt as first bootloader of the system if the current first bootloader is Windows one.</li>
<li>Add new registry flags for SystemFavoritesService to control updating of EFI BIOS boot menu on shutdown.</li>
<li>Allow system encrypted drive to be mounted in WindowsPE even if changing keyboard layout fails (reported and fixed by Sven Strickroth)</li>
<li>Enhancements to the mechanism preserving file timestamps, especially for keyfiles.</li>
<li>Fix RDRAND instruction not detected on AMD CPUs.</li>
<li>Don't write extra 0x00 byte at the end of DcsProp file when modifying it through UI</li>
<li>Reduce memory usage of IOCTL_DISK_VERIFY handler used in disk verification by Windows.</li>
<li>Add switch /FastCreateFile for VeraCrypt Format.exe to speedup creation of large file container if quick format is selected.</li>
<li>Fix the checkbox for skipping verification of Rescue Disk not reflecting the value of /noisocheck switch specified in VeraCrypt Format command line.</li>
<li>check "TrueCrypt Mode" in password dialog when mounting a file container with .tc extension</li>
<li>Update XML languages files.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Linux:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Fix regression causing admin password to be requested too many times in some cases</li>
<li>Fix off by one buffer overflow in function Process::Execute (Reported and fixed by Hanno Böck)</li>
<li>Make sure password gets deleted in case of internal error when mounting volume (Reported and fixed by Hanno Böck)</li>
<li>Fix passwords using Unicode characters not recognized in text mode.</li>
<li>Fix failure to run VeraCrypt binary built for console mode on headless machines.</li>
<li>Add switch to force the use of legacy maximum password length (64 UTF8 bytes)</li>
<li>Add CLI switch (--use-dummy-sudo-password) to force use of old sudo behavior of sending a dummy password</li>
<li>During uninstall, output error message to STDERR instead of STDOUT for better compatibility with package managers.</li>
<li>Make sector size mismatch error when mounting disks more verbose.</li>
<li>Speedup SHA256 in 64-bit mode by using assembly code.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>MacOSX:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Add switch to force the use of legacy maximum password length (64 UTF8 bytes)</li>
<li>Fix off by one buffer overflow in function Process::Execute (Reported and fixed by Hanno Böck)</li>
<li>Fix passwords using Unicode characters not recognized in text mode.</li>
<li>Make sector size mismatch error when mounting disks more verbose.</li>
<li>Speedup SHA256 in 64-bit mode by using assembly code.</li>
<li>Link against latest wxWidgets version 3.1.3</li>
<li>Add option to use legacy maximum password length (64) instead of new one for compatibility reasons.</li>
</ul>
<li>Use Hardware RNG based on CPU timing jitter "Jitterentropy" by Stephan Mueller as a good alternative to CPU RDRAND (<ahref="http://www.chronox.de/jent.html"target="_blank">http://www.chronox.de/jent.html</a>)</li>
<li>Add check on size of file container during creation to ensure it's smaller than available free disk space. Add CLI switch --no-size-check to disable this check.</li>
<li>Add check on size of file container during creation to ensure it's smaller than available free disk space. Add CLI switch --no-size-check to disable this check.</li>
<li>Fix low severity vulnerability inherited from TrueCrypt that allowed reading 3 bytes of kernel stack memory (with a rare possibility of 25 additional bytes).
<li>Add 5 new cascades of cipher algorithms: Camellia-Kuznyechik, Camellia-Serpent, Kuznyechik-AES, Kuznyechik-Serpent-Camellia and Kuznyechik-Twofish.</li>
<li>Remove GOST89 encryption algorithm. </li><li>Make PBKDF2 and HMAC code clearer and easier to analyze. </li><li>Add test vectors for Kuznyechik. </li><li>Update documentation to warn about risks of using command line switch ”tokenpin”.
</li></ul>
</li><li>Use SSE2 optimized Serpent algorithm implementation from Botan project (2.5 times faster on 64-bit platforms).
</li></ul>
</li><li><strong>Windows:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Fix keyboard issues in EFI Boot Loader. </li><li>Fix crash on 32-bit machines when creating a volume that uses Streebog as PRF.
</li><li>Fix false positive detection of Evil-Maid attacks in some cases (e.g. hidden OS creation)
</li><li>Fix failure to access EFS data on VeraCrypt volumes under Windows 10. </li><li>Fix wrong password error in the process of copying hidden OS. </li><li>Fix issues raised by Quarkslab audit:
<ul>
<li>Fix leak of password length in MBR bootloader inherited from TrueCrypt. </li><li>EFI bootloader: Fix various leaks and erase keyboard buffer after password is typed.
</li><li>Use libzip library for handling zip Rescue Disk file instead of vulnerable XUnzip library.
</li></ul>
</li><li>Support EFI system encryption for 32-bit Windows. </li><li>Perform shutdown instead of reboot during Pre-Test of EFI system encryption to detect incompatible motherboards.
</li><li>Minor GUI and translations fixes. </li></ul>
</li><li><strong>MacOSX:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Remove dependency to MacFUSE compatibility layer in OSXFuse. </li></ul>
</li><li>Fix TrueCrypt vulnerability allowing detection of hidden volumes presence (reported by Ivanov Aleksey Mikhailovich, alekc96 [at] mail dot ru)
<ul><li><strongstyle="color:#ff0000;">To avoid hinting whether your volumes contain a hidden volume or not, or if you depend on plausible deniability when using hidden volumes/OS, then you must recreate both the outer and hidden volumes including system encryption and hidden OS, discarding existing volumes created prior to 1.18a version of VeraCrypt.</strong></li></ul>
<li>Support EFI Windows system encryption (limitations: no hidden os, no boot custom message)
</li><li>Enhanced protection against dll hijacking attacks. </li><li>Fix boot issues on some machines by increasing required memory by 1 KiB </li><li>Add benchmarking of hash algorithms and PRF with PIM (including for pre-boot).
</li><li>Move build system to Visual C++ 2010 for better stability. </li><li>Workaround for AES-NI support under Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 R2. </li><li>Correctly remove driver file veracrypt.sys during uninstall on Windows 64-bit.
</li><li>Implement passing smart card PIN as command line argument (/tokenpin) when explicitly mounting a volume.
</li><li>When no drive letter specified, choose A: or B: only when no other free drive letter is available.
</li><li>Reduce CPU usage caused by the option to disable use of disconnected network drives.
</li><li>Add new volume ID mechanism to be used to identify disks/partitions instead of their device name.
</li><li>Add option to avoid PIM prompt in pre-boot authentication by storing PIM value unencrypted in MBR.
</li><li>Add option and command line switch to hide waiting dialog when performing operations.
</li><li>Add checkbox in "VeraCrypt Format" wizard GUI to skip Rescue Disk verification during system encryption procedure.
</li><li>Allow files drag-n-drop when VeraCrypt is running as elevated process. </li><li>Minor GUI and translations fixes. </li></ul>
</li><li><strong>Linux:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Fix mount issue on Fedora 23. </li><li>Fix mount failure when compiling source code using gcc 5.x. </li><li>Adhere to XDG Desktop Specification by using XDG_CONFIG_HOME to determine location of configuration files.
</li></ul>
</li><li><strong>MacOSX:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Solve compatibility issue with newer versions of OSXFuse. </li></ul>
<li>Support UNICODE passwords: all characters are now accepted in passwords (except Windows system encryption)
</li><li>Cut mount/boot time by half thanks to a clever optimization of key derivation (found by
<ahref="https://madiba.encs.concordia.ca/~x_decarn/"target="_blank">Xavier de Carné de Carnavalet</a>)
</li><li>Optimize Whirlpool PRF speed by using assembly (25% speed gain compared to previous code).
</li><li>Add support for creating exFAT volumes. </li><li>Add GUI indicator for the amount of randomness gathered using mouse movement.
</li><li>Include new icons and graphics contributed by <em>Andreas Becker</em> (<ahref="http://www.andreasbecker.de"target="_blank">http://www.andreasbecker.de</a>)
</li></ul>
</li><li><strong>Windows:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Fix dll hijacking issue affecting installer that allows code execution with elevation of privilege (CVE-2016-1281). Reported by Stefan Kanthak (<ahref="http://home.arcor.de/skanthak/"target="_blank">http://home.arcor.de/skanthak/</a>)
</li><li>Sign binaries using both SHA-1 and SHA-256 to follow new Microsoft recommendations.
</li><li>Solve issues under Comodo/Kaspersky when running an application from a VeraCrypt volume (Reported and fixed by Robert Geisler).
</li><li>Bootloader: Protect password/PIM length by filling the fields to maximum length with '*' after ENTER
</li><li>Solve issue with system favorites not being able to be mounted to drive A: </li><li>Solve lost focus issues for after displaying the waiting dialog </li><li>Solve rare issue where some partitions where asscoiated with wrong disk the "Select Device" dialog.
</li><li>Implement PIM caching, for both system encryption and normal volumes. Add option to activate it.
</li><li>Don't try mounting using cached passwords if password and/or keyfile are specified in the command line.
</li><li>Internal rewrite to make VeraCrypt native UNICODE application. </li><li>Workaround to avoid false positive detection by some anti-virus software. </li><li>Hide disconnected network drives in the list of available drives. Add option to make them available for mounting.
</li><li>Solve issue that caused in some cases configuration and history XML files to be updated even when not needed.
</li><li>Fix leak of path of selected keyfiles in RAM. </li><li>Fix TB unit can't be deselected in VeraCryptExpander. </li><li>Add Alt+i keyboard shortcut for "Use PIM" checkbox in GUI. </li><li>Minor GUI and translations fixes. </li></ul>
</li><li><strong>Linux/MacOSX:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Fix issue of --stdin option not handling correctly passwords that contain a space character (reported and fixed by Codeplex user horsley1953).
</li><li>Fix issue creating volumes using command line with a filesystem other than FAT.
</li><li>Support K/M/G/T suffixes for --size switch to indicate unit to use for size value.
<li>Modify patch for CVE-2015-7358 vulnerability to solve side effects on Windows while still making it very hard to abuse drive letter handling.
</li><li>Fix failure to restore volume header from an external file in some configurations.
</li><li>Add option to disable “Evil Maid” attack detection for those encountering false positive cases (e.g. FLEXnet/Adobe issue).
</li><li>By default, don’t try to mount using empty password when default keyfile configured or keyfile specified in command line. Add option to restore the old behavior.
<ul>
<li>If mounting using empty password is needed, explicitly specify so in the command line using: /p ""
<li>Fix two TrueCrypt vulnerabilities reported by James Forshaw (Google Project<br>
Zero)
<ul>
<li><ahref="https://code.google.com/p/google-security-research/issues/detail?id=538"target="_blank">CVE-2015-7358</a> (critical): Local Elevation of Privilege on Windows by<br>
abusing drive letter handling. </li><li><ahref="https://code.google.com/p/google-security-research/issues/detail?id=537"target="_blank">CVE-2015-7359</a>: Local Elevation of Privilege on Windows caused by<br>
incorrect Impersonation Token Handling. </li></ul>
</li><li>Fix regression in mounting of favorite volumes at user logon. </li><li>Fix display of some Unicode languages (e.g. Chinese) in formatting wizard. </li><li>Set keyboard focus to PIM field when "Use PIM" is checked. </li><li>Allow Application key to open context menu on drive letters list </li><li>Support specifying volumes size in TB in the GUI (command line already supports this)
<li>Mask and unmask PIM value in GUI and bootloader like the password. </li></ul>
</li></ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Windows:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Solve Rescue Disk damaged error when using cascade ciphers and SHA256 for system encryption.
</li><li>Solve option "Cache password in drive memory" always disabled even if checked in preferences.
</li><li>Solve UI language change not taken into account for new install unless a preference is changed.
</li><li>Implement creating file containers using command line. </li><li>Driver: disable support of IOCTL_STORAGE_QUERY_PROPERTY by default and add option to enable it.
</li><li>Driver: Support returning StorageDeviceProperty when queried through IOCTL_STORAGE_QUERY_PROPERTY.
</li><li>Support setting volume label in Explorer through mount option or favorite label value.
</li><li>Fix for Hot Keys assignment dialog issue where OEM-233 is always displayed and can't be changed.
</li><li>Always copy both 32-bit and 64-bit executable binaries during install and in Traveler Disk Setup.
<ul>
<li>Traveler Disk will again use 32-bit exe by default while also offering 64-bit exe.
</li><li>On Windows 64-bit, 32-bit exe files are now available(e.g. if needed to use 32-bit PKCS#11 dll)
</li></ul>
</li><li>Include Volume Expander in Traveler Disk Setup. </li><li>Don't offer creating a restore point if it is disabled in Windows. </li><li>Add possibility to verify a Rescue Disk ISO image file. </li><li>Minors fixes in the installer, GUI and driver. </li></ul>
</li></ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Linux:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Support supplying password using stdin in non interactive mode (contributed by
<li>Implement "Dynamic Mode" by supporting a Personal Iterations Multiplier (PIM). See documentation for more information.
</li></ul>
</li></ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Windows:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Detect Boot Loader tampering ("Evil Maid" attacks) for system encryption and propose recovery options.
</li><li>Fix buffer overrun issue and other memory related bugs when parsing language XML files.
</li><li>Fix wrongly reported bad sectors by chkdsk caused by a bug in IOCTL_DISK_VERIFY handling.
</li><li>Fix privacy issue caused by configuration and history files being updated whenever VeraCrypt is used (reported by Liran Elharar)
</li><li>Fix system favorites not always mounting after cold start. </li><li>Solve installer error when updating VeraCrypt on Windows 10. </li><li>Implement decryption of non-system partition/drive. </li><li>Include 64-bit exe files in the installer and deploy them on 64-bit machines for better performances.
</li><li>Allow using drive letters A: and B: for mounting volumes </li><li>Make command line argument parsing more strict and robust (e.g. /lz rejected, must be /l z)
</li><li>Add possibility to show system encryption password in Windows GUI and bootloader
</li><li>Solve "Class Already exists" error that was happening for some users. </li><li>Solve some menu items and GUI fields not translatable </li><li>Make volumes correctly report Physical Sector size to Windows. </li><li>Correctly detect switch user/RDP disconnect operations for autodismount on session locked.
</li><li>Add manual selection of partition when resuming in-place encryption. </li><li>Add command line option (/cache f) to temporarily cache password during favorites mounting.
</li><li>Add waiting dialog for Auto-Mount Devices operations to avoid freezing GUI. </li><li>Add extra information to displayed error message in order to help analyze reported issues.
</li><li>Disable menu entry for changing system encryption PRF since it's not yet implemented.
</li><li>Fix failure to change password when UAC required (inherited from TrueCrypt) </li><li>Minor fixes and changes (see Git history for more details) </li></ul>
</li></ul>
<ul>
<li><strong>Linux:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Solve installer issue under KDE when xterm not available </li><li>Fix warnings on about/LegalNotice dialogs when wxWidgets linked dynamically (N/A for official binary)
</li><li>Support hash names with '-' in command line (sha-256, sha-512 and ripemd-160)
</li><li>Remove "--current-hash" switch and add "--new-hash" to be more coherent with existing switches.
</li><li>When only keyfile specified in command line, don't try to mount using empty password.
<ul>
<li>If mounting using empty password is needed, explicitly specify so using: -p ""
<li>Mounting speed improvement, up to 20% quicker on 64-bit (contributed by Nils Maier)
</li><li>Add option to set default hash/TrueCryptMode used for mounting volumes. </li><li>Use TrueCryptMode/Hash specified in command line in password dialog. </li></ul>
</li><li><strong>Windows:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Solve CryptAcquireContext vulnerability reported by Open Crypto Audit Phase II.
</li><li>Proper handling of random generator failures. Inform user in such cases. </li><li>TrueCrypt Mode related changes:
<ul>
<li>Support mounting TrueCrypt system partition (no conversion yet) </li><li>Support TrueCrypt volumes as System Favorites. </li><li>Correct displaying wrong TrueCrypt mode in volume properties when SHA-256 is used.
</li></ul>
</li><li>Solve PIN BLOCKED issue with smart cards in a special case. </li><li>Correctly handle file access errors when mounting containers. </li><li>Solve several issues reported by the Static Code Analysis too Coverity. </li><li>Bootloader: Add "Verifying Password..." message. </li><li>When UAC prompt fails (for example timeout), offer the user to retry the operation.
</li><li>Uninstall link now open the standard "Add/Remove Programs" window. </li><li>On uninstall, remove all VeraCrypt references from registry and disk. </li><li>Included VeraCryptExpander in the Setup. </li><li>Add option to temporary cache password when mounting multiple favorites. </li><li>Minor fixes and enhancements (see git history for more information) </li></ul>
</li><li><strong>MacOSX:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Solve issue volumes not auto-dismounting when quitting VeraCrypt<strong>.</strong>
</li><li>Solve issue VeraCrypt window not reopening by clicking dock icon. </li></ul>
</li><li><strong>Linux/MacOSX:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Solve preferences dialog not closing when clicking on the 'X' icon. </li><li>Solve read-only issue when mounting non-FAT volumes in some cases. </li><li>Support opening/exploring mounted volumes on desktops other than Gnome/KDE. </li><li>Solve various installer issues when running on less common configurations </li><li>Minor fixes (see git history for more information) </li></ul>
<li>Add support for old TrueCrypt 6.0. </li><li>Change naming of cascades algorithms in GUI for a better description. </li></ul>
</li><li><strong>Linux/MacOSX:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Make cancel button of the preference dialog working. </li><li>Solve impossibility to enter a one digit size for the volume. </li><li>Add wait dialog to the benchmark calculation. </li></ul>
</li><li><strong>Windows:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Add TrueCrypt mode to the mounted volume information. </li><li>For Windows XP, correct the installer graphical artefacts. </li></ul>
<li>Add support for mounting TrueCrypt volumes. </li><li>Add support for converting TrueCrypt containers and non-system partitions. </li><li>Add support for SHA-256 for volume encryption. </li><li>Make SHA-512 the default key derivation algorithm and change the order of preference of derivation algorithms : SHA-512 -> Whirlpool -> SHA-256 -> RIPEMD160
</li><li>Deprecate RIPEMD160 for non-system encryption. </li><li>Speedup mount operation by enabling choice of correct hash algorithm. </li><li>Display a wait dialog during lengthy operations to avoid freezing the GUI. </li><li>Implement creation of multiple keyfiles at once, with predefined or random size.
</li><li>Always display random gathering dialog before performing sensitive operations.
</li><li>Links in the application now points to the online resources on Codeplex </li><li>First version of proper VeraCrypt User Guide </li></ul>
</li><li><strong>MacOSX:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Implement support for hard drives with a large sector size (> 512). </li><li>Link against new wxWidgets version 3.0.2. </li><li>Solve truncated text in some Wizard windows. </li></ul>
</li><li><strong>Linux:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Add support of NTFS formatting of volumes. </li><li>Correct issue on opening of the user guide PDF. </li><li>Better support for hard drives with a large sector size (> 512). </li><li>Link against new wxWidgets version 3.0.2. </li></ul>
</li><li><strong>Windows:</strong><br>
<ul>
<li>Security: fix vulnerability in bootloader detected by Open Crypto Audit and make it more robust.
</li><li>Add support for SHA-256 in system boot encryption. </li><li>Various optimizations in bootloader. </li><li>Complete fix of ShellExecute security issue. </li><li>Kernel driver: check that the password length received from bootloader is less or equal to 64.
</li><li>Correct a random crash when clicking the link for more information on keyfiles
</li><li>Implement option to auto-dismount when user session is locked </li><li>Add self-test vectors for SHA-256 </li><li>Modern look-and-feel by enabling visual styles </li><li>few minor fixed. </li></ul>
<li><strongstyle="text-align:left">Improvements and bug fixes:</strong>
<ul>
<li>Correct most of the security vulnerabilities reported by the Open Crypto Audit Project.
</li><li>Correct security issues detected by Static Code Analysis, mainly under Windows.
</li><li>Correct issue of unresponsiveness when changing password/key file of a volume. Reduce overall time taken for creating encrypted volume/partition.
</li><li>Minor improvements and bug fixes (look at git history for more details). </li></ul>
