Secure Your Computer Data in Useful Way

A modern PC leads a kind of dual life. On the one hand, it serves as an entertainment center, offering access to games, online videos, and the entire Internet. On the other hand, it acts as a tool for collecting, creating, and storing important information of all kinds.

If your computer is lost, busted, or stolen, switching to a new one has little effect on the entertainment side. But unless you’ve properly protected or rescued the personal data on that system, a theft or loss could become a data disaster. How can you head off such a disaster? Here are some hot ideas.

Hide Your Valuables

If a burglar breaks into your house, will she find your valuables lying around in plain sight? Or have you hidden them away safely? Even if you don’t really anticipate burglary, hiding your treasures makes sense. By the same token, even though your security suite or antivirus really should fend off data-stealing Trojans, protecting your personal data on the chance one might get through is just common sense. Having your data locked down will also help if that burglar makes off with your laptop.

You already have the resources to lock down many of your documents. If you store financial information in Excel spreadsheets, use Excel’s built-in ability to password-protect those documents. Do the same for any sensitive Word documents, PDFs, or any other document with encryption capability.

Skip the Recycle Bin

When you need to dispose of papers that contain private information, you don’t toss them in the recycling bin with the newspapers. Rather, you put them through the shredder. When deleting sensitive files, you should likewise avoid Windows Recycle Bin/Mac Trash Bin.

Deleting a file actually just moves it to the Recycle Bin. If you hold Shift while deleting the file, Computer system skips the Recycle Bin. Even so, the file’s data remains on disk until overwritten. A persistent data thief could use forensic utilities to recover that information.

Many security suites include a virtual shredder that securely deletes sensitive files. This type of utility overwrites the file’s data anywhere from one time to over 30 times before deletion. Three overwrites is probably plenty; forensic recovery experts at DriveSavers confirm that overwriting data even once makes recovery nearly impossible.

Encrypt It!

A data-stealing Trojan will grab what it can get easily. Unless you’re the target of a personally directed hack attack, you can figure that even simple encryption will defeat the Trojan. Got a sensitive file you need to keep, rather than shred? At the very least, copy it into an encrypted ZIP file and then shred the original.

Some security suites include an option to create a “vault” for storing files. The encrypted storage vault looks and acts like an ordinary folder when you’ve opened it using the password, but when it’s locked the files within are completely inaccessible. Keeping that encrypted data in external storage is even safer than encrypting it in place. There are many encrypting USB storage solutions with varying capabilities. Any of these can stay in your pocket when not actively in use.

Keep It Offsite

PCs break down, laptops get stolen, files get lost. A backup copy is the ultimate security for your data, but if you keep the backup with the computer a single disaster can take out both at once. A hosted online backup service encrypts your data and keeps it in a safe location far, far away.

Unless your PC functions as nothing but an entertainment center, its loss or theft will have an impact far beyond the cost of a replacement. By taking steps to protect the important data on the PC you can keep that impact to a minimum. Hide personal data, securely delete outdated sensitive files, and encrypt sensitive files that you’re still using. That will keep a thief from stealing both your PC and your identity. Maintaining an offsite backup copy will ensure you don’t lose access to the data files you really need to keep. A little effort now can save a huge headache later. For more details you can visit this post for solving data loss problem or just go to our official website by clicking uFlysoft studio.