Must-Have Encryption Software to Protect Your Data in Case of a Device Loss or Theft

ROKKEX
4 min readApr 24, 2019

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The devices of modern people know everything about them. Any doubts? Even our spouses probably cannot recall all the passwords and other account information, but your devices are capable of it, especially if you have a habit of saving the password when asked by the browser. In this regard, data protection should become the primal priority in case of device theft.

Modern people depend on their devices more than they think, and the probability that the laptop, smartphone, or tablet might be lost or stolen implies a great danger for its owner. If a criminal receives the computer, it usually means that all the files, accounts, and information saved in it becomes available for a stranger. It is better not to even imagine the scale of the catastrophe. A device loss might imply leaking of the confidential information and using it for the criminal benefit. Considering this danger, it is necessary to determine the ways to protect your laptop from any unauthorized use, and there is a software that is able to help in conducting the file encryption.

Microsoft

BitLocker

BitLocker is a full volume encryption feature included with Microsoft Windows versions starting with Windows Vista.

Its recent updates allow encrypting the whole drive, some individual files, and even the portable devices to make sure that the information of the users is protected appropriately. Also, as the recent version of BitLocker Device Encryption turns on immediately after turning on a device, the data is protected permanently.

TrueCrypt 7.1a

An intuitive and user-friendly software solution that enables users to create encrypted volumes on their computers and store private documents

TrueCrypt 7.1a is another encryption software for Windows. The software is aimed to hide confidential or important information, and it uses a part of the disk or the whole disk for it, but its name does not include any prompts regarding the essence of the program. Thus, it is genuinely impossible to define its specificity among the other ones on the disk.

Mac OS

FileVault

FileVault full-disk encryption (FileVault 2) uses XTS-AES-128 encryption with a 256-bit key to help prevent unauthorized access to the information on your startup disk.

This encryption software can be used by the owners of the Mac operating system, and it allows you to protect the system from the criminals who know how to open the account without inserting the password. It is assumed that there is no opportunity to get access to the account data of a Mac user, but, unfortunately, the black hat hackers are capable of the password reset utilizing Single User Mode. FileVault encryption software for Mac does not give such a chance, as it asks for a password immediately after operating system loading.

Linux

eCryptfs

eCryptfs — an enterprise-class cryptographic filesystem for linux

This software is used for file encryption in Linux, and it does not require any space on the disk to conduct the encryption of the information. Each file contains all the necessary information in its header, therefore, the files might be copied in different hosts. The encryption software has a significant drawback since it cannot encrypt the entire drive at once, but the file encrypted by this software contains all the necessary information, and there is no need to look for the additional information about this file.

In general, for the big companies in America, $7.3 million is the average cost of the lost or stolen data. Therefore, if a criminal finds an employee’s laptop, the company might lose a significant amount of money due to data leakage and loss of intellectual property. What is also rather challenging, the reputation of the business might suffer, as neglecting cybersecurity is the first sign of carelessness. In this regard, using a whole-disk encryption program is the best safeguard against unauthorized access of data on your laptop or notebook computer. Such applications use strong encryption methods that protect your device’s hard drive while allowing you easy access to your data.

Some more advice on privacy on the internet

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