Personal Data Encryption

The physical security of your personal computer can often take precedence when the topic of computer security comes to mind for a novice but what about the security of the data on the device it’s self. This week’s focus will discuss the topic of data encryption and how using free open source software called “Truecrypt” can take easily readable data files and scramble the information for unauthorized users. Encryption as defined in “The Guide to Firewalls and VPN’s” by Whitman, Mattord, Green (2012) describes it as “a process that turns information that is plainly readable (plaintext) into scrambled form (ciphertext) in order to preserve the authenticity, integrity, and privacy of the information…(Whitman, Mattord, Green, 2012).” One might ask themselves “Well, now knowing what encryption does, how would encryption benefit me?”  Let’s take a look at a quick scenario. Say you work for a company that allows telecommuting, which gives employees the benefit of working in a non-central environment. To complete tasks issued by your employer, you begin traveling with electronic devices such as a laptop. At this point lets ask this question “What happens if that device get stolen or is lost at some point in time?” Is the information stored on the device safe from unauthorized viewers? If not you could’ve just cost your organization a major lost to its information assets. To prevent such a loss from happening one could look towards encryption, as a solution for the security needs of the data assets located on the device. Software “Truecrypt” has the ability to, as stated from its introduction section on its website http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/, “[do] on-the-fly encryption…[which] means that data is automatically encrypted right before it is saved and decrypted right after it is loaded…” If you’re interested in beginning the process of protecting data through encryption “Truecrypt“ has a tutorial that can step users through the process located here http://www.truecrypt.org/docs/tutorial