I was installing Ubuntu and noticed the option to encrypt the system, which made me wonder what exactly the advantages of encryption are. I have very little technical knowledge and I wanted to know what specific risks a non-encrypted system has, for example if another person obtains your computer. What data would they be able to access by having access to your hard drive? Would they gain access to profiles on websites or applications that you are logged into, assuming they do not have the password to the system profile? Are there any other reasons why you would want to encrypt your hard drive besides theft?
3
-
1The "security risks" are very VERY broad, and extremely wide ranged because "encrypting a system" actually means many different things based on the scope of the question. Some programs encrypt their data at rest versus your system doing "full disk encryption" (which has no impact at the time of 'running' the system because it's already 'accessed'). Because of the wide breadth of this topic, it's not exactly a good fit for Ask Ubuntu solely because of the scope.Thomas Ward– Thomas Ward ♦2026-04-24 03:40:14 +00:00Commented Apr 24 at 3:40
-
@ThomasWard Even though this question is "fishy" I would have let it go without closing it because it's still valuable to AU as a duplicate question target.karel– karel2026-04-24 03:43:21 +00:00Commented Apr 24 at 3:43
-
2@karel 'fishy' isn't the reason it was closed. The reason I closed it is the question of 'encryption' and 'security' together are extraordinarily broad and constantly evolving. That makes it 'overly broad' to be answered (see comments to this effect by others on the answers). Feel free to open a meta discussion if you disagree.Thomas Ward– Thomas Ward ♦2026-04-24 03:55:40 +00:00Commented Apr 24 at 3:55
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
Boot up any computer (regardless of OS) using a live system (eg. Ubuntu Desktop or a flavor and use the TRY mode) and explore the data on the disk... Without encryption you can quickly get access to data etc (any OS, from CP/M from the late 70s, DOS of 80s, or any modern OS too), and even change that data! (eg. if you forget a password; replace the hashed password with a known hashed password; same with Microsoft Windows or a Ubuntu) ...
Encryption makes that immensely more difficult, and puts out out the range of possibility for most end-users anyway.
There are various methods of encryption too, some make this more difficult than others, some encryption methods require specific hardware too; so whatever Ubuntu product/release you're using will have specific ways it'll encrypt, which may differ to options used on a different Ubuntu product/release and with different hardware.
If you have good physical security, encryption just adds more complication to the maintenance in the future usually (ie. desktop/servers in offices/homes with few visitors etc*), but if the device is regularly transported (laptop, tablet etc), the added cost of maintenance is easily justified with the additional security offered by encryption in my opinion.
-
1This started out as a comment, but was getting too long for that.. Not sure this broad question fits the site (so happy to delete this 'opus of a comment'), but hopefully something here is ~useful.guiverc– guiverc2026-04-24 03:31:07 +00:00Commented Apr 24 at 3:31
What data would they be able to access by having access to your hard drive?
Everything that's not otherwise encrypted by the apps using them
Would they gain access to profiles on websites or applications that you are logged into, assuming they do not have the password to the system profile?
Maybe, depending on how the apps/browser encrypt their session/token. If they use keyring, those aren't available without the profile credential.
Are there any other reasons why you would want to encrypt your hard drive besides theft?
Malware from other OS when dual booting can snoop unencrypted partitions. If you ever decide to sell your storage, you just delete the partition table and you're good to go. If you're the type who hold on until it broke, you also don't have to worry if someone ever took it from your attic and it happen to work again for a while.
