A distributed storage network received a data segment. The data segment is partitioned into two or more portions. A first portion hash is calculated from the first portion of data and used to encrypt the second portion of data. A hash of the encrypted second portion of data is then used to either encrypt the next portion of data (in this case, a third portion of data) or to circle back to the beginning and encrypt the first portion of the data if the second portion of data is the last in data segment. This iterative process continues until all portions of the data segment are encrypted in a sequence. In essence, the data portions of the segment are sequentially processed in some order to encrypt the various portions in that progressing order. A reverse order is used to derive the hash values and decrypt the encrypted data portions into decrypted original data to recreate the data segment.