Disk encryption software
Disk encryption generally refers to wholesale encryption that operates on an entire volume mostly transparently to the user, the system, and applications. This is generally distinguished from file-level encryption that operates by user invocation on a single file or group of files, and which requires the user to decide which specific files should be encrypted. Disk encryption usually includes all aspects of the disk, including directories, so that an adversary cannot determine content, name or size of any file. It is well suited to portable devices such as laptop computers and thumb drives which are particularly susceptible to being lost or stolen. If used properly, someone finding a lost device cannot penetrate actual data, or even know what files might be present.
Ciphertext
In cryptography, ciphertext or cyphertext is the result of encryption performed on plaintext using an algorithm, called a cipher. Ciphertext is also known as encrypted or encoded information because it contains a form of the original plaintext that is unreadable by a human or computer without the proper cipher to decrypt it. Decryption, the inverse of encryption, is the process of turning ciphertext into readable plaintext. Ciphertext is not to be confused with codetext because the latter is a result of a code, not a cipher.