Encryption

Hackers looking to steal sensitive data online often look for the easiest targets -- namely files that are easily found and read on a computer. When a laptop is stolen, if a file is easily read, the value of the laptop may have increased dramatically if the thief knows where to sell the sensitive data. But by using encryption, you can protect files on your computer by making them unreadable to others. Encryption takes regular text and scrambles it into a nonsensical combination of letters, numbers and symbols. The only way to return the text to a readable state is if you have an authorized encryption key, which is often password protected.

In response to the need for easy-to-use encryption many software applications now provide encrypt files. In fact, both the Windows and Macintosh operating systems have file encryption as a standard feature.

There are several different ways to encrypt data on your machine: you can encrypt a file within the program you use to create it, such as Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat; you can have an encrypted folder or location on your computer where you place the files you want to protect, using programs like Windows Encrypted File System (EFS) or TrueCrypt . You can also encrypt your entire computer (called full disk encryption) using BitLocker on Windows Vista or FileVault on Macintosh OS X, both of which come preinstalled.

When you encrypt files it is important to remember they are only accessible with the password you used to encrypt them. If you forget your password your files will be lost. If you encrypt your entire computer and forget your password you will not be able to log in used to protect them. You can use a program like PasswordVault to safely store your passwords for future retrieval.