Why encrypt your USB flash drive?
Pendrives (USB sticks or USB drive) are really handy tools, allowing you to roam far and wide while bringing all your important documents with you. They are easy to carry and easy to use, which is great for you, but bad, bad news if your pendrive happens to fall into the wrong hands.
I just had an unpleasant episode that really reminded me of the need to have some kind of encryption on your thumb drives.I was leaving a friend’s house, got in my truck and drove home. I unloaded my pockets as usual and discovered–no thumb drive.I did find the flash drive a few minutes later, by the curb outside my friend’s house. But the whole time I was looking, I was trying to do a mental inventory of what information was on that thumb drive.Fortunately, I don’t store sensitive client information on my thumb drives. Yet, the idea of someone else finding the drive and being able to freely access the other info on the drive was not a pleasant one.
Lesson: Don’t put personal or client/work passwords or other sensitive data on a thumb drive. If for some reason you do have to have some of that information with you, make sure that information is encrypted.
You need to pre-empt any nasty accidents, so why not protect the most important documents by storing them in an encrypted partition?
How to encrypt your USB flash drive?
That’s what GiliSoft USB Stick Encryption will allow you to do – create a password-protected secure area that you can only access if you have the pendrive and know the magic words. GiliSoft USB Stick Encryption provides an extra layer of reliable security for your pendrive.
The small utility is very easy to use, and the lack of offline help shouldn’t prove too problematic. You connect your pendrive, back-up all your data – because the program erases everything – choose the size of the secure area and press install. When you’ve finished, GiliSoft USB Stick Encryption will prompt you to choose a password which you will have to enter to open the secure area in the future.
Once the area is open, you’ll be able to save to it and browse as you would in any normal pendrive. Don’t forget to close it when you’re done! Uninstalling the area or changing the password isn’t a problem either, but you can only perform these actions if the area is already closed.