Lion Cipher Lab
Turn on full-disk encryption (and save your recovery key)
- Cyber / Security Engineer
- Beginner
- ~30 min
- Free · no account required
Why it matters
A laptop or phone left in a taxi, stolen from a bag, or sold without wiping is one of the most common ways personal and company data actually leaks — and without encryption, whoever ends up with the device can read every file on it simply by pulling the drive or booting from a USB stick; your login password protects the account, not the bytes on the disk. Full-disk encryption fixes that: with it on, the entire drive is scrambled and unreadable without your key, so a lost device is a hardware loss, not a data breach. Every major OS ships this for free, and turning it on is one of the…
What you'll learn
- understanding what full-disk encryption protects against
- enabling BitLocker / FileVault / LUKS on your own device
- safely storing a recovery key
- knowing FDE's limits (it protects data at rest, not a running unlocked machine)
Steps in this lab
- What full-disk encryption actually protects against
- Back up first, then find your platform's built-in tool
- Turn it on
- Save your recovery key — this is the step people regret skipping
- Confirm it's on, and understand the everyday experience
- Don't forget the small devices
- Why this is the best security-per-minute you can buy