Freeware Software Vault?
Phred
Posts: 1,147 Forum Member
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I am the membership secretary of an Amateur Sports Club, and take the laptop to sessions to log payments etc.
It has member details on it, so, to be safe, would prefer to kepp member details in a secure area, just in case laptop gets "mislaid"
Can anyone suggest suitable free software vault, or similar, programs that would allow me to keep the member data (mainly Access and Excel) safe.
Thanks
It has member details on it, so, to be safe, would prefer to kepp member details in a secure area, just in case laptop gets "mislaid"
Can anyone suggest suitable free software vault, or similar, programs that would allow me to keep the member data (mainly Access and Excel) safe.
Thanks
0
Comments
There are free encryption progs available should you feel the need but I don't think you necessarily need to go that far.
It is possible that you can password protect the files from within Access/Excel without needing any third party apps.
If you are using windows pro, enterprise or ultimate then you can use the built in encryption, bitlocker. Else something like 7-zip allows you to compress with a password but you would have to extract and compress each time you want to edit a file.
Whatever you use, the issue is one over convince. If you don't store the password then you will be prompted for it each time. if you store the password and don't encrypt the whole disk, then somebody with physical access to your laptop can reset the password and thus gain access to the encrypted storage.
Note that MS Office creates temporary files for easy recovery of files in the event of a crash or whatever.
http://office-recovery.com/excel.asp
The temporary files may be deleted when the application is closed normally but they could still be recovered by a file recovery program. eg Recuva
I don't know what best practice is to deal with this.
As for data security you should really be looking at encrypting the hard drive. If it is running Windows 8 or Windows 7 Ultimate you could go with Bitlocker which is builtin. Otherwise Truecrypt would be better than nothing even if it is no longer supported. Some business AV software also offer encryption facilities.
Off-topic Kensington Lock story - a neighbour rang me (as the local computer dude) saying he'd been given a monitor that had a huge earth strap fastened to it, and he wanted to know what to connect it to. Intrigued, I went round to have a look. I said it's a Kensington Lock and this monitor is ****ing stolen (prob from an office). He sawed it off. Council estates huh ?
I personally used Google Drive with Boxcryptor to add an extra level of security. Files can be saved to Google Drive locally and these will be synchronised to their servers whenever you get an internet connection.
You could also backup this data to an encrypted USB flash drive memory stick if you're concerned with something happening before the data get synced.
One thing to remember: if you forget you key/passphrase with AxCrypt then the data is gone forever. If you don't want to have the fuss with having to enter the key every time with AxCrypt you can have it remember the key. This means that if someone manages to access the machine then they will be able to view the data, but the minute it's copied off the machine, it's unusable without the key. As good practice I'd recommend entering the key every time as it means you're less likely to forget what it is and not just rely on the machine remembering it for you.
https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/
Is the plain text now copied somewhere else on the hard drive?
Iqoniq thinks that Axcrypt is shredding something, but what? Does it shred its own and Office temporary files?
What does VeraCrypt do? Are temp files all within the container or are some in C: Appdata Local Roaming etc?
https://veracrypt.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=System%20Encryption
though personally I'd be a bit wary of that.
For example, you could run CCleaner for Windows temps and Appdata temps and then Wipe Free Space.
But it's not exactly convenient every time you open or edit a file
Someone must know the way it is supposed to be done.
A lost USB or CD/DVD is easy. If it is encrypted, you won't get any data.
I think for a laptop, tablet, phone just make sure it's not lost/stolen/interfered with.
Is that sufficient for the Data Protection Act and non-workplace users with personal information on others in public?
What about DropBox (or equiv) and a PAYG wifi dongle.
Most MS Office software deletes any temporary files it creates the moment you close the document. Whether it shreds them or not I don't know. In order for AxCrypt to shred them it would either need to take control from the program to implement it's own shredding routines, or at least mark the files position on disk and then overwrite them itself. Either of these seem unlikely.
I think what AxCrypt deletes is the temporary files it creates itself. When you open a Word file (for instance) that's encrypted with AxCrypt, it creates the file as Word needs this file to actually use it as it just sees the encrypted file as gibberish. When you save and close the document, AxCrypt then takes the amended file and encrypts it again without you needing to do anything. After it's done that the shredding begins.
Any temporary files AxCrypt creates itself it does delete. Encrypt an image with AxCrypt, view it and when you close it you'll see AxCrypt go through a shred cycle. Whether your image viewer has made temporary files or something is down to that software, so whether it gets deleted or not is down to that specific piece of software as is where it creates them. As I said, MSOffice (and OpenOffice variants) all delete their temp files as well so you wouldn't have to use CCleaner (which also offers shredding functions).
As an asides, shredding on a memory stick is going to drastically reduce the lifespan of it. At the very most with a memory stick all you need is a 1-pass write over. Also, if someone is determined to retrieve data then they will. I have a copy of Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro and I've managed to pull data from a drive which has been formatted a few times and wasn't in the same file system that the data was originally written to.