This is one important step in increasing the dependability of your PC. There are many things to be taken care on this factor. However a detailed explanation is available at our PC Security Guide..
There are many issues with not keeping the PC secure with all the OS patches, antivirus, antispyware, and firewall programs. Following are some of those dangers.
- It is dangerous for the data.
- Your private data like user name, password may be stolen.
- System can become unstable and hang frequently etc..
Hence the dependability rises with better security. There is no such thing as 100 percent secure PC. However common measures like antivirus, Firewall, Antispyware are essential to be setup and running.
Encryption in Windows XP.
Encryption deal with another aspect of keeping the PC data secure. if you encrypt a folder, that folder will become inaccessible for another user with trying to access with a different user name.
You can use Encrypting File System (EFS) to:
- Encrypt data
- Access encrypted data
- Copy, move or rename encrypted data
- Decrypt data
Benefits of encryption.
If you have a laptop computer and you have lost it, if you have encrypted your files in windows XP, even if the thief connects its hard disk to another PC and tries to retrieve its files, it would not be possible to do so.
Encrypting data:
The default configuration of the Encrypting File System (EFS) requires no administrative effort–users can begin encrypting files immediately. EFS automatically generates an encryption key pair for a user if one does not exist.
EFS can use either the expanded Data Encryption Standard (DESX) or Triple-DES (3DES) as the encryption algorithm.
Encryption services are available from Windows Explorer. Users can also encrypt a file or folder using the command-line function cipher. For more information about the cipher command, type cipher /? at a command-line prompt.
Privileges (Rights)
Most people may not be aware about this important feature in windows XP and other OS’s. You could create a user and set his privilege in such a way that he does not have all the rights to a certain folder of yours. However you have to be administrator to effectively implement this policy. Otherwise user who is administrator can override your settings.
Also NTFS based file system is recommended for this to function well as FAT file system does not have much option with regards to user rights. For more information please consult you windows XP help pages.
Next : Organizing files & Disk.