Secure your files
from hackers!
Hackers from all
over the world are now trying to get your computer to “share”
your files with them so that they can go through them to see if there
is any information there that can be used to obtain vital information
about you.
They look for your
business account numbers, your utilities account numbers, your
family's Social Security numbers, your home and/or business
addresses, your health insurance identification number, and so on and
so forth!
They need that
information to try and gain access to your accounts and/or steal your
identity or even use your information to gain access to a larger
target such as a business institution or your bank.
I have come to the
conclusion that it is probably now safer for the average user just to
encrypt the sensitive information files that they save and are now
just sitting there located on their hard drive and/or stored
somewhere on the 'cloud'.
How many users out there now have
their previous years’ income tax returns just occupying their hard
drives? I personally prepare my income taxes using the
collection of spreadsheets that can be found and downloaded from the
internet at
http://www.excel1040.com
and I surely wouldn’t
want that information compromised by some unknown hacker(s)!
However, this
recommendation comes with a little caveat!
The first thing that
you should realize is that when you encrypt anything;
if the
protection was made by 'man' then somewhere that very same protection
can be broken by another 'man'. What you really want to do is to try
and cause the hacker to spent so much time trying to decrypt the
file(s) that it isn't cost effective for the hacker to spent so much
time and effort on your encrypted files and the hacker just moves on
to their next victim, who they perceive will be easier to victimize.
A few years ago, I
stopped buying Microsoft Office Suite and switched over to the GNU
office suite of
LibreOffice
{it has a cousin named
OpenOffice
that is very similar} because it is a free software product and it
serves all of the usual computer user needs as well as is able to
open or save Microsoft Office Suite files.
My recommendation is
that you “
double encrypt” all of your sensitive files using
two totally different software programs. NOW, don't be put off by
this recommendation, luckily both
LibreOffice
&
OpenOffice both come
with a built in encryption feature!
1.) When you go to save the file(s), just click on the word
File
at the top of the screen and then click on
Save As and a
dialog box will open for you to type in the new file name. You will
see a box next to the phrase 'Save with password', make sure that
box is checked and type in the new file name. You will then be
prompted for the password
* to
allow you to open the file whenever it is accessed. Type in the
password that you want and the file will be saved so that only the
correct password will allow it to be opened and accessed again.
That is the first
encryption that you could use to protect your file(s).
The second program
to finally “double encrypt” your file(s) that I recommend is
another free program,
AxCrypt,
that can be downloaded off the internet. So, after you have encrypted
it with the internal encryption of the office suite, you can then
encrypt the whole file again with the stand alone program. That
follows the security trend of “two-step” verification, which a great many major commercial and business institutions have been slowly adopting over the past several years. It is about time the average user join this trend
*
Password(s)
– my suggestion for easy to remember password(s) for the user and a
very difficult password for the hacker to try and guess are old
addresses at previous residences that you, your relatives, and any of your old friends {like girl/boy friend(s)} may have had in the past,
especially if you have changed your city and/or state of residence:
{
e.g.
1234MainStreet,AnyCity,AnyState(zip code)}
Such a password
fulfills
all the criteria for a very STRONG password, it has
numerals, upper case letters, lower case letters, punctuation
characters, and is more than 21 characters in length! It is estimated
that it would take a super-computer working for 24 hours a day, 7
days a week, over two years to guess such a password. This is something the user will always remember and the hacker will never have a clue of what it could possibly be. Not many
hackers would spend that much time and money for computer time trying
to guess such a password and just move on to their next victim that
they have hacked after failing trying to guess the initial password.
