Microsoft Windows was to provide facilities to encode (encrypt) files stored on a hard drive instantly. Facility called the Encrypting File System EFS or contained only in versions of Windows Vista Business, Enterprise and Ultimate versions of Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000.
Versions of Windows Vista Starter, Home Basic and Home Premium only provide facilities to open their password only (decryption). It means we can open the files encoded by EFS but not to encode the file. While Windows XP Home version does not even equipped with EFS.
EFS is very easy to use to shuffle the contents of a file or folder by simply requiring a password-protected account. To use EFS on a partition hard drive, hard drive must be in NTFS format.
Because only using a password-protected account of his early open Windows only, makes EFS encryption system is not as strong as others that encode the files / folders based on algorithms and hardware.
Apart from the drawback is, of course, is still tolerable for EFS to protect files that are considered "privacy" when the computer is used by another person (who of course with another username) that can not easily be instantly visible.
However, to maintain the confidentiality of critical data, the most powerful way is to encode the data stored or distributed it with the best encoding technique that is based encryption algorithms and hardware with a reliable lock.
Encoding technique with EFS
To encode a file or folder with EFS, right-click on the file / folder, click Properties, click Advanced ..., click to tick mark the box with the inscription Encrypt contents to secure data, click OK twice.
When that will be encoded in the file, a dialog box will appear stating that the contents.
you have chosen to encrypt files, but files are stored in a folder that is not encrypted, if the files are modified / changed, the file will become decrypt automatically.
It is recommended to encrypt files and folders. Files that are saved into that folder (which has been encrypted) will automatically including encrypted as well.
Then we were asked to choose whether to encrypt any file or its folder.
When an encoded is the folder will display a dialog box that it states:
you have chosen encrypt (or decrypt), then asked whether to apply the encrypt (or decrypt) is the only folder or folders, subfolders and files it.
We can encode multiple folders / files at once by first selecting the folder / files to be encoded and then right-click, click properties and so on.
Files or folders that have been encoded will be marked with green color. But if we do not want others to know there are files encoded (because it is green) then open Explorer (for Windows XP) and click Tools, click Folder Options, click View. In the Advanced settings box remove the tick mark on the Show encrypted or compressed NTFS files in color. Click OK.
0 comments: