We could take security for granted, until the worst actually happens. Make your deepest secrets, personal documents, or intellectual property you have worked for months left stolen without a trace behind them. Mac’s can not catch viruses, but they are definitely not of an attack by a hacker or maybe someone who secured the your Mac NABS at the airport. Here is a small series that keep your information only where you want to have. We start with the core of what is important: data.
Files and Folders
Computer files is stored most of our work. It could financial records in a spreadsheet, a design job in a number of Photoshop documents, or perhaps a few personal pictures to do want scattered over the Web. Privacy by encrypting is one of the oldest tricks in the book and it seems to work quite well. Mac OS X allows creating highly encrypted disk images which can be stored to any form of data in a readily accessible form, are used. We have even a tutorial on how exactly to do done. Third party developers have and resigned from this process even easier, so that the encryption and security for the user remains transparent.
FileVault
A tool in OS X is integrated with FileVault. This encrypts your entire home folder while remaining totally transparent for the user. Everything you need to do is, go to system preferences > Security > FileVault and power. You are protected by two passwords if you have forgot the lower level, can it be reset with the master password. To not lose you watch it but, as there is no way to crack a band FileVault once it locked. I would also advise backup of your data, there are reports of users been disabled with no reason at all. What the degraded FileVault ver and unlocked the home folder at login and logout and consumes very little resources during operation itself. “A unencrypted look at file Vault” here is to understand what exactly file vault for your data.
Espionage
The best tool I have tried, espionage from Tao effect is so far. This simple tool you can easily encrypt any files or folders with a simple user interface. Once locked, the contents of this file are absolutely safe from any hack (that is, until the hacker knows your password). You can even lock application data such as mail or iChat conversations. The performance hit is who and for $ 25 a piece that I would consider this application particularly for any serious Mac user recommended.
FileLock
Another simple tool for blocking of data bits proceeds FileLock and pushes 448-bit Blowfish encryption. I’m not sure whether the average person requires that much of encryption, but more the better. The resulting encrypted file (which is checked for data integrity) can fear email without to set cracked. With the files on each computer FileLock open installs via a contextual Finder plugin. It is not nearly as rich as espionage function but I take these additional bits encryption it was worth mentioning. CAD25, it is a pretty average transaction volumes.
Data Integrity
While files and folders are important on your Mac, little bits of data are sometimes even more crucial to keeping your secrets close. Credit Card information, passwords to email accounts, and all kinds of digital notes can reveal information that’s too dangerous to even imagine.
1Password
The Grand Daddy of 1Password password manager is the most robust data security tool on the Mac. Used by a majority of Mac users it has polished really agile. It will automatically fill in Web forms, create very complicated passwords for different pages and can even credit card information to store, secure notes, and data bits in its database a bit. All this is hence the name unlocked with a single password. 1Password costs $ 40 for a single user license and $ 70 for a family to pack. It is not the cheapest, but a long way, keep your data safe to go, and your Internet browsing experience so much fun as possible.
SecretBox
A relatively new application from App4Mac allows secret box to save bits any information in its secure database. You can all database in their secure 256 bit encrypted passwords, software licenses, notes, bookmarks, info about credit cards. The characteristic that find I most interesting is that, if you specific part of the data access, only that small bit decrypted is so that the rest of the database locked firmly. At $ 40 per license but I would say go only with more proven 1Password.
File Erasing
While Mac OS X has a secure erase feature on OS X, it’s not very helpful when you need to destroy a single file or folder. You have to either securely empty the entire trash (Finder > Secure Empty Trash) or nothing. If you want to make sure your already deleted data doesn’t show up, you can launch disk utility, and secure wipe the free space of a partition (either 1 time, 7 times, or 35 times depending on how badly you want it to be gone).
Permanent Eraser
A tool built for a single purpose, Permanent Eraser will make sure your file is completely scrambled and wiped till it’s unrecoverable by any traditional means. I’m not sure if high level data forensics can read scrambled data, I’m sure there’s always a way, but for what it’s worth, this tool will make sure your data is gone. And it’s free.
I think that’s enough of security for your files. We’ll take a look at some other areas you need to seal off in the near future. If you have any security workflow in mind, do share.
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