AV boot disks and Truecrypt encrypted drives

Question

I was wondering if there were any "how-to" guides on what is needed to modify AV boot disks, such as Sophos, kaspersky, AVG etc in order to load the decryption drivers/bootloader for Truecrypt before scanning?

Or other Disk encryption tools for that matter - Safeboot for example

As a precaution we periodically boot scan with alternate AV, but for Windows laptops we'd like to provide disk encryption as well, by default this would break the bootscan routine unless we can load the decryption onto the cd.

Answer 1

Your question calls for knowledge of Windows (DOS) batch files. You would need to make a bootable disk containing a batch file that will 1) mount the TrueCrypt voume and 2) then run the desired AV app.

Batch files have fallen into disuse, you might want to ask your Dad :)

First, search the internet for your favorite method of creating a bootable USB drive or CD for your version of Windows.

Next, you will need to create a batch file named autoexec.bat . This is a text file that you could create in Notepad, the extension .bat indicates it is a batch file and the reserved name autoexec.bat tells Windows to run this file at startup. A batch file is merely a list of commands such as you would type at a Command Prompt.

You can find TrueCrypt command line syntax at: http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/command-line-usage

You can find command line syntax for your preferred AV product by searching the internet or your AV provider's site, for example for Sophos: http://www.sophos.com/en-us/support/knowledgebase/13252.aspx

You might also want to put copies of the TrueCrypt and AV program executables on the USB drive or CD.