Sponsored Links

Featured Link

Featured Product

Return to our article index.

Securing Your System by Using Encryption

Encryption, what it does to your system? It makes your system secure. There are a lot of encryption and cryptographic software available and they help in achieving a secured system. Read along the article and you can understand how to encrypt your e-mails and files.

Only two encryption software is discussed in this article. However, there are several other encryption and cryptographic software available, which you might use for encrypting your files and e-mails. Simply do a search in any of the search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN for free encryption software; you will definitely get a huge list of such software. Before downloading, please read their privacy policy carefully and also check for the legitimacy of the website. Main reason for discussing only two of the software even though many are available is because they are available for free.

If your system is encrypted, then it makes harder for the hackers to break into your system. Encryption doesn’t mean that your system cannot be broken. They make it tough to be broken. Encryption is simply an algorithm, which can be simple or complex. The more complex the encryption algorithm is, the tougher it is to be broken.

Encrypting e-mails:

You might think why it is necessary to encrypt the e-mails? When compared to paper mail, that is, your usual letter, e-mail communications are less secure. Shocked to hear this particular piece of information!!! The main reason is because they can be accessed very easily over the internet. Another major reason is that they can be copied with no trouble or effortlessly. Chances of someone snooping at your e-mail are more.

You must now be totally convinced about why e-mails have to be encrypted. What…will you encrypt your e-mails from now on? As we are over with why encrypting e-mails is necessary, let us now look at the ways to encrypt e-mails. Some of the most popular e-mail encryption software programs that are available for free are PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) and GPG.

To make use of the PGP software, you can visit http://www.pgpi.org/. Why use PGP software? It is because PGP software program helps in securing your e-mails. You may look at their privacy policy for more information. When you encrypt your e-mail communication, it will resemble like some meaningless jumble of random characters and hence unable to read by hackers.

Encrypting files:

We now saw how to encrypt e-mails. Let us now discuss about encrypting files that you have stored in your computer. You might have a lot of personal and sensitive information stored in your system. If any such sensitive information like the social security number (SSN), account numbers/passwords, financial data, etc., are stored in your system, it is essential that you encrypt the files; else you are at the risk of loosing them when connected over the internet.

One of the most popular file encryption software programs is AxCrypt, which can be downloaded from the website http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/. They self-describe themselves as: "Free Personal Privacy and Security for Windows 98/ME/NT/2K/XP with AES-128 File Encryption, Compression and transparent Decrypt and Open in the original application."

09/08/10 Dell Collaborates with Trend Micro

09/08/10 Apple and Adobe Both Roll Out Large Security Updates

09/08/10 HP to Acquire Fortify

09/08/10 Microsoft Issues Record Breaking Security Update

09/08/10 Microsoft Fixes Most Recent Vulnerability

09/08/10 Google Pushing to Redefine 'Responsible Disclosure'

09/08/10 Mozilla Rolls Out Security Update for Firefox