Encrypted File

Hi folks

I am all new to encrypting.

What I know about encrypting is, it is about saving or displaying your data in a manner that others may see it but cannot understand meaning of it. Correct me if I am wrong.

I have a file (could be a simple notepad file) which has some undisclosable data. I need to encrypt it. I have seen sometimes files which show small black squares and/or special symbols when you open it. I guess they are encrypted. I would like to do something like that.

I need some help on it.

Thanks
Stay Tuned

Look into PGP.

Whats PGP..plz help.

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PGP® or Pretty Good Privacy® is a powerful cryptographic product family that enables people to securely exchange messages, and to secure files, disk volumes and network connections with both privacy and strong authentication.

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Read more about PGP here

But I recommend using GnuPG(the complete and free replacement for PGP)

cheers!!



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Hi chaitanya

If you have to deal with sensitive data in general, first try to
think about your approach. Is encryption the only way? Or is
it one of many "lines of defense"? The decision is based on a
lot of input factors, such as the value of the asset, cost of
the security measures implementation, cost of their maintenance
etc.

What is the environment we are talking here about?
Single-person-single-PC, small company - LAN, ... ?
Are there company wide regulations, policies? Is there a centrally-
managed "secure" server? Do you need to transfer sensitive files?
etc.


Just a few thoughts to the most likely scenario: You are working
on a PC, which can be accessed by other persons.

First, do you have to store the file locally? What about a (portable)
medium only you have access to, like, if the asset's value is not high,
a memory stick? Just make sure, nobody steals it ;)

First, I would try to restrict the access to your files, if supported
by the OS you are running.

First, if you have to encrypt a file, use a standard encryption
algorithm, like AES or 3DES. One free tool supporting all this
and much more is gnuPG[1]. It is not the simplest one to use,
but an allrounder.

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I have seen sometimes files which show small black squares and/or special symbols when you open it. I guess they are encrypted. I would like to do something like that.

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Maybe these indeed are encrypted files, but you see the same effect
when you open an executable in notepad or word. A file, no matter what
file-type it represents, in the end is a bunch of bytes (numbers between 0
and 255). Some of these numbers correspond to letters, digits or punctuation,
others don't. Notepad is a very simple text-file reader, but you can open
any type of file. So, if it does not know how to handle a certain "byte", notepad
replaces that "number" with a little square. :)


Cheers.

[1] http://www.gnupg.org/(en)/features.html

Hey sec_ware,

Thankx for so much of information. One Question - How would I get informatioin on all those encryption algorithms

Stay tuned

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How would I get informatioin on all those encryption algorithms

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Hope the following links will help you.

AES (Advanced Encryption Standard)

3DES (Data Encryption Standard)

MD5

SHA 1 (Secure Hash Algorith)

SHA 2

You can search Wikipedia for more information regarding them at http://www.wikipedia.org/


cheers!!



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