Encryption is a method of protecting data from people you don’t want to see it. For example, when you use your credit card on Amazon, your computer encrypts that information so that others can’t steal your personal data as its being transferred.
Similarly, if you have a file on your computer you want to keep secret only for yourself, you can encrypt it so that no one can open that file without the password. It’s great for everything from sending sensitive information to securing your email, keeping your cloud storage safe, and even hiding your entire operating system.
Encrypting Data On Mac
Encrypting Data On Windows
Should I Encrypt My Files?
Things can get stolen even if you don’t share your computer. All someone needs is a few minutes in front of the keyboard to retrieve anything they want. A login password won’t protect you, either—breaking into a password-protected computer is insanely easy. Therefore, So should you encrypt your sensitive files? Yes. You have two options when it comes to encryption.
- Encrypting a select group of files keeps them safe without any extra complications. However, if someone had access to your computer, they could still break into it and view any non-encrypted files, access your browser, install malware, and so on.
- Encrypting your entire drive makes it difficult for anyone to access any of your data or even boot up your computer without your password. However, if you experience any corruption on your drive, it’s much less likely that you’ll be able to retrieve that data
Full disk encryption is more secure, but can also be much more problematic if you don’t put in the work to keep everything backed up safely.
Additional Security Methods
Take advantage of these encryption and protection tools to ward off spammers, spoofers, and hackers.
Nobody else decides for you: You choose. You are in full control of your security.
Symmetric key encryption basics can protect data, but they can’t send it securely. To encrypt an email using symmetric encryption, you’d have to contact them and agree on a key, but if you sent the key over the Internet, someone else could be listening in. Secure Socket Layer (SSL), and the newer Transport Layer Security (TLS) are designed to tackle that problem. They’re used to secure online communication such as banking, payment and email. You can tell a website is using SSL/TLS when its address starts with “https.”
Unfortunately, SSL/TLS isn’t unbreakable. When it’s used in email, the message only stays encrypted if the server supports encryption. If the server only has an old, weak version of SSL, or doesn’t support it at all, the email can be intercepted by a third party and spied on. Hackers can also compromise SSL/TLS by gaining control of a server, or by using a fake security certificate to pass a scam website off as the real thing.
HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox, Chrome, and Opera extension that encrypts your communications with many major websites, making your browsing more secure. HTTPS Everywhere is produced as a collaboration between The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
A cookie is a small set of data that is created by a certain website and sent to the user’s computer to be stored in the user’s web browser while the user is browsing. Cookies are used primarily in order to make the user experience on this website better and more pleasant: cookies record the data about the user’s settings, preferences, and activity on the website.
But the cookies can be stolen by the MITM attacker from the browser in order to be seen as the user by the web server and, for instance, access the user’s account without going through user authentication.
Firefox: Cookie AutoDelete
Chrome: Cookie AutoDelete
Further How to guide.
The best way to protect messages travelling across the Internet is to keep them encrypted from the moment they leave the sender’s device until they enter the recipient’s device.
A client-side encrypted email leaves your inbox as a scrambled string of data. It doesn’t matter if the servers it passes through support encryption or not. It doesn’t even matter if a hacker or spy records your message; they can’t do anything with the data, because they don’t have the encryption key.
BleachBit is a free and open-source disk space cleaner, privacy manager, and computer system optimiser.
BleachBit’s file shredder uses only a single, “secure” pass because its developers believe that there is a lack of evidence that multiple passes, such as the 35-pass Gutmann method, are more effective.
OW Shredder is a file shredder with many extra tools at your disposal. You can simply drag and drop files or folders on the OW Shredder window and it will begin shredding (securely erasing) your files instantly. Similarly, you can drop a drive (partition) on its window and it will start the shredding of the drive. Furthermore, it can also erase the data from free space so that the data of files that you have already deleted is also erased.
Download Link
A man-in-the-middle attack (MITM) is an attack where the attacker secretly relays and possibly alters the communication between two parties who believe they are directly communicating with each other.
Recommended action: ARP attacks allow an attacker to silently eavesdrop or manipulate all your data that is sent over the network. XArp performs advanced active and passive methods to detect such attacks.
Ghostpress is a free anti-keylogging software that prevent malicious software from capturing your keyboard presses.
Instant Download link: https://schiffer.tech/software/ghostpress/dl.php
CYBER SECURITY SKILLS
Dont stop now! Keep it up.
You are in control. Knowledge is power. Use these tool to fight for your privacy and increase your Cyber-security skills.