the virtual memory volume on Catalina says File Vault is off

jrmyeh wrote:

It is normal that swap memory is not encrypted? What would stop someone unauthorized from reading its content?

Even when FileVault is not used— data is still encrypted on the macOS

"Secure virtual memory in macOS eliminates this risk by encrypting the data in virtual memory. Secure virtual memory is always on, so data is kept secure while it’s swapped between your hard disk and RAM. The RAM on your Mac contains no information when it’s turned off."

ref: https://support.apple.com/en-nz/guide/mac-help/mh11852/mac

jrmyeh wrote:

I was looking at the progress of my hard drive's encryption in Catalina using the terminal command "diskutil apfs list".

The system and data volumes showed that they were encrypted, and unlocked, which I'd expect.

The preboot and recovery volumes showed "File Vault: no" by them, which I guess makes sense as there isn't any user data in those areas.

But, I noticed that the VM (virtual memory) volume also showed "File Vault: no" by it.

This is normal.

I see no issue here.