Enterprise Mac Security: Mac OS X Snow Leopard

9.2. Using Disk Images as Encrypted Data Stores

Although the keychain serves as a great tool for securely storing passwords and small blocks of information, it is not great for storing any type of data that requires formatting, and it has absolutely no facilities for storing files. For this type of data encryption need, we instead turn to disk images. A disk image is essentially a virtual volume that can be mounted on a computer and then used to store files. When a disk image is mounted, it appears just like any hard drive or CD would, and is accessed in the same manner as a hard drive: you simply create folders and save files to it. Disk images have been around the Mac OS for a long time, and are most commonly used today for the digital delivery ...