Wednesday 7 September 2011

Securing Your Email


E-mails are as private as postcards it only takes a hacker to steal your password either by Phishing, Hacking into your system or even hacking a website that you are registered on and downloading the user database. Once a hacker gets into your inbox it’s a matter of time for him to download all your emails to his hard drive and even if you change your password by then it’s already too late.
To protect yourself, always delete sensitive emails once you have read them or ask your recipient to do so. Change your password frequently and use different passwords for different email accounts. Also Never set your secret answer (from the password recovery secret question feature) to something everybody could guess i.e What city do I live in? Answer: Dubai.Avoid using public WiFi's. Finally make sure your alternative email address for the password reset is an email you use and not an old email account that got closed down.

Encrypting your data using Truecrypt


So you have set a password on your windows or which ever operating system you use and feel safe? guess what its not. The login password security feature is bypassable using tools like Konboot where you just load a cd and simply boot the system up. So how do you stay safe?

The strongest security you could ever have is using a program called Truecrypt. You can encrypt your entire hard disk (even with the operating system)/USB memory stick/portable hard disk. It turns data to code and is unreadable. By setting a strong password on Truecrypt not even the FBI would be able to crack it. Just one thing do not forget that password! Or you can kiss the data goodbye J

Truecrypt is free and has lots of cool features such as hiding the partition and you can also  modify the boot loader.when booting up your laptop the first thing you get is a black screen with a message, you can modify this and have it display “Missing Operating System” this can be used to fool the person that’s trying to access your system. And even if your over the internet and a hacker manages to break into your system the data is encrypted and he won’t be able to view it. 

You can download it from the officeal site www.truecrypt.org/