VeraCrypt 1.24

What's new in this version:

- Increase password maximum length to 128 bytes in UTF-8 encoding for non-system volumes.
- Add option to use legacy maximum password length (64) instead of new one for compatibility reasons.
- Use Hardware RNG based on CPU timing jitter "Jitterentropy" by Stephan Mueller as a good alternative to CPU RDRAND (http://www.chronox.de/jent.html)
- Speed optimization of XTS mode on 64-bit machine using SSE2 (up to 10% faster).
- Fix detection of CPU features AVX2/BMI2. Add detection of RDRAND/RDSEED CPU features. Detect Hygon CPU as AMD one.
- Implement RAM encryption for keys and passwords using ChaCha12 cipher, t1ha non-cryptographic fast hash and ChaCha20 based CSPRNG.
- Available only on 64-bit machines.
- Disabled by default. Can be enabled using option in UI.
- Less than 10% overhead on modern CPUs.
- Side effect: Windows Hibernate is not possible if VeraCrypt System Encryption is also being used.
- Mitigate some memory attacks by making VeraCrypt applications memory inaccessible to non-admin users (based on KeePassXC implementation)
- Erase system encryption keys from memory during shutdown/reboot to help mitigate some cold boot attacks
- Add option when system encryption is used to erase all encryption keys from memory when a new device is connected to the system.
- Add new driver entry point that can be called by applications to erase encryption keys from memory in case of emergency.
- MBR Bootloader: dynamically determine boot loader memory segment instead of hardcoded values (proposed by neos6464)
- MBR Bootloader: workaround for issue affecting creation of hidden OS on some SSD drives.
- Fix issue related to Windows Update breaking VeraCrypt UEFI bootloader.
- Several enhancements and fixes for EFI bootloader:
- Implement timeout mechanism for password input. Set default timeout value to 3 minutes and default timeout action to "shutdown".
- Implement new actions "shutdown" and "reboot" for EFI DcsProp config file.
- Enhance Rescue Disk implementation of restoring VeraCrypt loader.
- Fix ESC on password prompt during Pre-Test not starting Windows.
- Add menu entry in Rescue Disk that enables starting original Windows loader.
- Fix issue that was preventing Streebog hash from being selected manually during Pre-Boot authentication.
- If "VeraCrypt" folder is missing from Rescue Disk, it will boot PC directly from bootloader stored on hard drive
- This makes it easy to create a bootable disk for VeraCrypt from Rescue Disk just by removing/renaming its "VeraCrypt" folder.
- Add option (disabled by default) to use CPU RDRAND or RDSEED as an additional entropy source for our random generator when available.
- Add mount option (both UI and command line) that allows mounting a volume without attaching it to the specified drive letter.
- Update libzip to version 1.5.2
- Do not create uninstall shortcut in startmenu when installing VeraCrypt. (by Sven Strickroth)
- Enable selection of Quick Format for file containers creation. Separate Quick Format and Dynamic Volume options in the wizard UI.
- Fix editor of EFI system encryption configuration file not accepting ENTER key to add new lines.
- Avoid simultaneous calls of favorites mounting, for example if corresponding hotkey is pressed multiple times.
- Ensure that only one thread at a time can create a secure desktop.
- Resize some dialogs in Format and Mount Options to to fix some text truncation issues with non-English languages.
- Fix high CPU usage when using favorites and add switch to disable periodic check on devices to reduce CPU load.
- Minor UI changes.
- Updates and corrections to translations and documentation.