Using Symantec Endpoint Encryption Removable Media Encryption on macOS to Open and Modify Encrypted Files
Article ID: 273164
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Products
Issue/Introduction
Symantec Endpoint Encryption has the capability to encrypt files on Removable Media Encryption automatically and seamlessly.
On macOS, the functionality of the tool differs. Rather than copy directly to the USB Drive, instead you open the SEE RME Removable Media Access Utility to encrypt/decrypt and open files, much like a file browser.
This article will walk you through the general process of how this is done.
Resolution
The first step to encrypting a file is to plug in your USB drive and check to see if the file "RemovableMediaAccessUtility.dmg" file is present.
If it is not present on the USB Drive, you will need to copy the file to the USB drive. If you are unsure how to obtain this files, reach out to your Encryption Administrator to acquire this application.
This application is available on Windows systems when you plug in a USB drive, and is automatically copied to any USB drive when plugged in to Windows.
To get this on macOS, you will need go to a Windows machine, plug in the USB drive, and this will copy, and then make this available to your end users.
Note: Once this application is obtained, it can be used to access data on machines that do not have Symantec Endpoint Encryption Removable Media Encryption installed.
As a result, there is no policy to enforce or control how it is then used. All encryption operations are handled on the USB device and the user will have full control of what is encrypted and decrypted.
In order to decrypt a file, a passphrase must be known. If you don't know what this is, you may need to work with your administrator to get this.
Table of Contents
Section 1 of 3: Open/Mount the "RemovableMediaAccessUtility.dmg", file and access the SEE RME Package
Step 1. Once you obtain a USB drive, check if the "RemovableMediaAccessUtility.dmg", file exists on it.
In the screenshot above, you can see we are working with a "Kingston" device. This is a USB drive that was plugged in to this system called "MB-MBMBMBMB".
Double click the USB device you may have to see the contents. You should see the highlighted file below:
If the "RemovableMediaAccessUtility.dmg", file is not on your USB drive, acquire it from your administrator and copy it to your removable media device that you wish to use.
Step 2. Now on the macOS system, open the USB device and double-click on the "RemovableMediaAccessUtility.dmg" file.
Step 3. The .dmg (image file) should mount and it should show up as another drive. It may then automatically launch a new window where you will see an application called, "RemovableMediaAccessUtility".
This is the actual utility you will use to encrypt and decrypt files. All the files you want to copy to USB drives, you need to add them via this application.
The following screenshot shows you what the utility looks like on the mounted .dmg file:
Section 2 of 3: Encrypt Files on the USB Drive
Now that you have the application, we will use it to encrypt the files that you wish to copy to the USB device.
Step 1: Double-click on the "RemovableMediaAccessUtility" application. This will open the main interface you will use to do all your encryption work:
As you can see in the screenshot above, all the same folders that are on the actual USB device also appear here.
Initially, all the data on the drive will be unencrypted. You can either leave the data there unencrypted, or you can choose to encrypt the files or folders.
Step 2: We want to add a file to the USB device and ensure that it is encrypted. To do this, we will right-click to see a context menu.
Click on "Encrypt", and browse to the file you would like to encrypt and add.
In this case, we click on the file "CompCompCompCompComp.xlxs". Once it is copied to the USB Device, it will be encrypted.
Step 3: When prompted, you will enter the passphrase you would like to use to encrypt all your content:
Important Note: This same password will be used to access future content, so do not forget it! There is no recovery for this passphrase.
Step 4: You can check that the file was encrypted by accessing the USB Device outside of the "RemovableMediaAccessUtility".
In this example, we will double-click the "Kingston" device in the File Explorer:
You should now see the file is now copied to the device in the regular USB view. However; in this case, since the file is encrypted, we get an error that it cannot be opened:
Step 5: In order to access the encrypted data, you will use the "RemovableMediaAccessUtility".
Within this application, we will right-click the file in the example and select open:
The file should now open and display the message within the actual application used to open it.
You can now make any edits to the file and when you are done, you can click "Save".
All the changes will save to the encrypted file. To open the file again, you would access it via the "RemovableMediaAccessUtility" application.
Section 3 of 3: Troubleshooting
Question 1: When I double-click a file directly on the USB device that I encrypted, I get an error that it can't open:
Answer 1: In order to open encrypted content, you need to first launch the "RemovableMediaAccessUtility" application held within the .dmg file.
Once you do so, then select open and you should be able to access the data.
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Question 2: My Administrator gave me the SEE RME .dmg file, and I can mount it, but when I try to open the , I get an error:
Answer 2: If you have not copied the .dmg file to your USB drive where you want to encrypt data to, you need to do that before you can encrypt.
Copy the .dmg file to your USB device, and then try to mount it again. You need to unmount any .dmg files that you previously mounted for this to work.
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Question 3: I get an error when I try to open the "RemovableMediaAccessUtility" application, and I even copied it to the USB device:
Answer 3: If you already tried to launch the .dmg from your regular hard drive, or desktop in File Explorer, unmount the .dmg files first.
Once they are all unmounted, then open the USB device, and mount the .dmg file there. Then you can open the SEE RME application.
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