Simple tools to protect the data on your PC
Beside to 7zip(AES Encryption) & RAR softwares......These are few nice things to be learned.
Simple tools to protect the data on your PC
With almost all our personal data finding its way on to our computers, protecting it from prying eyes becomes much more than just a priority; it becomes a necessity. Thankfully , there are some easy-toapply methods that let you do just this. The good part? You don't need to be a computer whiz nor do you need to spend any money on protecting the data on your PC
Securing folders
Often, all a user is looking for is to hide or password-protect a folder that contains confidential files that he or she does not want others to access. The solution in such cases is rather simple - just use a specialised program to make the folder invisible to others. ...
My LockBox
As the name suggests, this program allows you to hide a folder. Nothing more, nothing less. During installation , My Lockbox asks users to select the folder they want to hide and prompts for a password that would be required to unhide the folder.
Once the installation is complete , the folder is hidden. Not only from prying eyes, but also from the Windows operating system. This means that the folder (and files inside it) won't even appear in search results.
If you want, you can make multiple folders invisible . Whenever you want to access these folders, just fire up My LockBox and use the password to unlock them.
My LockBox should be sufficient for most people's security needs, but if you are looking for militarygrade encryption, you could consider TrueCrypt. The program creates a "virtual disk" for files that will only be visible to the user after he enters the relevant password.
When installing, you can choose to install TrueCrypt on to your hard drive, or to run it in portable mode, for example, from a pen drive.
TrueCrypt
TrueCrypt uses a technology called 'container encryption ' and turns a normal file into a secure virtual disk. For example, you could create a file called Encrypt.txt (a normal text file) and use the program to assign 100MB storage to it. To everyone using the computer (other than you, of course) the file would seem like a text file.
But every time you need to store secret files, you could use TrueCrypt to save data into the 100MB container file. There are many more advanced features, but you may not need them.
Securely deleting data
Of course, if you are serious about your data security, you will be aware that deleting a file doesn't really remove it from your system. And it is quite possible that someone could retrieve that "deleted" data using recovery tools. To ensure that your deleted files stay deleted, use...
CCleaner
CCleaner or Crap Cleaner is a versatile tool that securely deletes all your unwanted files by writing over the remains of all discarded files in a process it calls wipe. Depending on how security-conscious you are, you can select the number of wipes that CCleaner will make. One is usually more than enough
DBAN
Darik's Boot And Nuke is a very powerful tool and should be used only when you want to securely nuke all the data on a harddisk(s) in one go. For example, before selling your old computer. It is also rather complex to use. But don't worry, we will give you a brief idea.
As DBAN is used to delete all the data, including system files, it has to be run from a bootable CD. To create the bootable CD of DBAN, download the DBAN file which is in ISO format and burn that image onto a CD.
When you want to use DBAN, make sure that your computer is set to boot from the optical disk - the option is in BIOS settings. Put DBAN in the CD/DVD drive, boot your computer, select the disks that you want to erase and hit enter. When DBAN finishes its work, your data will be gone.
Securing your hard disk
Securing folders is easy. But what if you want to secure a whole disk (for example, the D drive on your PC or your 16GB pen drive). TrueCrypt can do that, but fortunately, in this case, we have a simpler solution. DiskCrypt allows a user to encrypt complete disks, even those where your Windows OS resides.
If you choose to encrypt the C drive, you will be required to enter a password before the computer boots. The learning curve is not as steep as that of TrueCrypt, but full-disk encryption in itself is something we will not recommend unless you know
With almost all our personal data finding its way on to our computers, protecting it from prying eyes becomes much more than just a priority; it becomes a necessity. Thankfully , there are some easy-toapply methods that let you do just this. The good part? You don't need to be a computer whiz nor do you need to spend any money on protecting the data on your PC
Securing folders
Often, all a user is looking for is to hide or password-protect a folder that contains confidential files that he or she does not want others to access. The solution in such cases is rather simple - just use a specialised program to make the folder invisible to others. ...
My LockBox
As the name suggests, this program allows you to hide a folder. Nothing more, nothing less. During installation , My Lockbox asks users to select the folder they want to hide and prompts for a password that would be required to unhide the folder.
Once the installation is complete , the folder is hidden. Not only from prying eyes, but also from the Windows operating system. This means that the folder (and files inside it) won't even appear in search results.
If you want, you can make multiple folders invisible . Whenever you want to access these folders, just fire up My LockBox and use the password to unlock them.
My LockBox should be sufficient for most people's security needs, but if you are looking for militarygrade encryption, you could consider TrueCrypt. The program creates a "virtual disk" for files that will only be visible to the user after he enters the relevant password.
When installing, you can choose to install TrueCrypt on to your hard drive, or to run it in portable mode, for example, from a pen drive.
TrueCrypt
TrueCrypt uses a technology called 'container encryption ' and turns a normal file into a secure virtual disk. For example, you could create a file called Encrypt.txt (a normal text file) and use the program to assign 100MB storage to it. To everyone using the computer (other than you, of course) the file would seem like a text file.
But every time you need to store secret files, you could use TrueCrypt to save data into the 100MB container file. There are many more advanced features, but you may not need them.
Securely deleting data
Of course, if you are serious about your data security, you will be aware that deleting a file doesn't really remove it from your system. And it is quite possible that someone could retrieve that "deleted" data using recovery tools. To ensure that your deleted files stay deleted, use...
CCleaner
CCleaner or Crap Cleaner is a versatile tool that securely deletes all your unwanted files by writing over the remains of all discarded files in a process it calls wipe. Depending on how security-conscious you are, you can select the number of wipes that CCleaner will make. One is usually more than enough
DBAN
Darik's Boot And Nuke is a very powerful tool and should be used only when you want to securely nuke all the data on a harddisk(s) in one go. For example, before selling your old computer. It is also rather complex to use. But don't worry, we will give you a brief idea.
As DBAN is used to delete all the data, including system files, it has to be run from a bootable CD. To create the bootable CD of DBAN, download the DBAN file which is in ISO format and burn that image onto a CD.
When you want to use DBAN, make sure that your computer is set to boot from the optical disk - the option is in BIOS settings. Put DBAN in the CD/DVD drive, boot your computer, select the disks that you want to erase and hit enter. When DBAN finishes its work, your data will be gone.
Securing your hard disk
Securing folders is easy. But what if you want to secure a whole disk (for example, the D drive on your PC or your 16GB pen drive). TrueCrypt can do that, but fortunately, in this case, we have a simpler solution. DiskCrypt allows a user to encrypt complete disks, even those where your Windows OS resides.
If you choose to encrypt the C drive, you will be required to enter a password before the computer boots. The learning curve is not as steep as that of TrueCrypt, but full-disk encryption in itself is something we will not recommend unless you know
