Put Your File Folders Under Lock and Key
How many times have you gone to lunch and kept your PC on? Or left
your office on a Friday evening without locking the door? Even if you keep your
PC under lock and key, someone could read or copy your important files. If you
worry about intruders breaking into your PC, a file-encryption program can take
a load off your mind.
Like e-mail encryption programs, file-encryption software protects
sensitive information by scrambling it so that even a hard disk thief armed
with disk recovery tools can't read it. We looked at eight packages that
encrypt and decrypt individual files, directories, or entire hard drives. The
best deal is SecureWin Technologies' SecureWin, an arsenal of encryption and
other safety features.
You can't get a more comprehensive data security package for the
price than SecureWin. It offers multiple tools, from easy-encryption folders to
digital signatures to a
Mission Impossible-like deletion
feature. Like Symantec's Norton Your Eyes Only and Encore Software's Security
98, SecureWin lets you create special quick-encryption folders in Windows
Explorer. Just drop the file you want encrypted into the folder, and its
contents are protected automatically. Paranoia fans will go for Secure Delete.
The electronic equivalent of a paper shredder, it repeatedly overwrites deleted
files with zeroes so data recovery tools can't read them. SecureWin's most
unusual feature is Self Destruct: You set the criterion (such as entering the
wrong password 10 times in a row), and the program automatically deletes
specified files if an intruder triggers it. Need we say you should back up the
files you tag for this feature?
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SecurPC has a number of high-end features for power users--yet
even novices can pick it up quickly. Among its most useful capabilities:
transforming encrypted files into self-decrypting miniprograms, a handy feature
if you want to share scrambled files with other people. The only catch:
Recipients have to use a password you give them to extract the contents,
creating a bit of a security dilemma in itself.
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If you need a basic encryption utility and don't own an antivirus
program, Security 98 is a good choice. It's one of the least expensive packages
of the lot, and it offers virus protection, a feature we'd have expected to
encounter in Symantec's Norton Your Eyes Only. However, if you've already
installed a different antivirus application on your PC, it may conflict with
Security 98's built-in program.
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DataSafe Encryption is an easy-to-use, basic program that shares
one high-end feature with SecurPC: It can create self-decrypting files, making
it a solid choice if you like to send scrambled files to other people. (To
unencrypt the files, recipients need only a password.) DataSafe can also
compress files, but it does this at an agonizingly plodding pace.
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Want to give several people in your company access to a highly
confidential file and then track their changes to it? Unique among the programs
reviewed here, Entrust/Solo generates multiple passwords so it can audit the
actions of multiple users who open an encrypted file (say, on a networked file
server). It's one of two programs (SecureWin is the other) that lets you
digitally sign an encrypted file.
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With its multiple interfaces and rather technical design, Norton
Your Eyes Only is more like a set of spare parts flying in formation than a
fully constructed airplane. Not only are its looks off-putting, you can find
most of its features--a quick-encrypt folder, a paper shredder, and an
auditor--in other programs that cost half as much.
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Kremlin Encryption Security Suite is fairly inexpensive for a
file-encryption application, but all it does besides encrypt files is compress
them, and you can do that with a freeware utility like PKZip. We recommend that
you spend $15 more for SecureWin, which has compression and other features.
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Encrypt-It offers less for the price than any other package here.
Besides handling encryption, Encrypt-It shreds files with a Secure
Delete-like tool, but there its feature set ends.
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