Encrypting Files and Emails: A Guide to Safeguarding Your Confidential Information

Nowadays, important and confidential information is constantly transmitted through various electronic devices and networks. Whether it is personal, financial or business data, it must be well secured and protected from unauthorized access. One of the most effective ways to do this is through encryption.

Encryption is the process of converting plain text or data into an unreadable format using an encryption algorithm that can only be read by someone with a special key. This is a guarantee that if a file or email is intercepted by unauthorized recipients, they will not be able to read the information.

In cybersecurity, encryption plays a key role in ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of data. In everyday life, however, it is used to facilitate: it is used in online transactions to protect financial information or in messaging applications to protect it from being read by unauthorized users.

Why encrypt files and messages?

Encryption of data by employees is important because it may contain sensitive information not intended for users outside the organization. This process adds another layer of security to protect against security. Encryption ensures that even if the information is intercepted by the wrong hands, it is unreadable and useless, preventing the leakage of sensitive data.

Securing assets in this way is becoming increasingly important for companies due to the need to comply with data protection and privacy regulations such as GDPR, PCI-DSS and HIPAA. Such regulations require organizations to take steps to protect sensitive data, and failure to comply with them may result in legal and financial penalties. Encrypting messages and files can protect people and businesses from various cyber threats such as identity theft and financial fraud, and ensures the confidentiality and integrity of data.

How to encrypt files?

Here are some steps to secure your files:

• identify the file you want to encrypt: it can be any document, photo, video, etc.,
• choose encryption software. Various tools are available along with built-in features on Windows and macOS. Continue its installation,
• view the file you want to encrypt with the installed software,
• choose an encryption algorithm according to your needs from the suggestions provided in the tool,
• the tool will ask you to create a password that will be used to encrypt and decrypt the file. Remember to choose a strong and safe combination of characters,
• after choosing a password, start the encryption process in the installed tool. The time needed for this process may vary depending on the selected algorithm and file size,
• once encryption is complete, the file will be saved with a new extension.

By following these steps, you can encode your sensitive information and protect it from unauthorized and interception.

How to encrypt emails?

Securing emails in this way is another way to protect important information. Here's what the process looks like:

• after selecting the message encryption tool, install it and configure it to work with your email account by following the steps described in the documentation,
• then compose the message as usual. When creating an email, you can encrypt it using a tool of your choice. This involves selecting the encoding option and selecting the recipient's public key. This choice will ensure that the recipient can read the message using their private key.

Once the message is encrypted, you can send it as usual. The recipient will need to have the appropriate data to view its content.

Encryption of files and emails is a key solution to protect confidential information from unauthorized access, interception or manipulation. By following the steps described above, you can be sure that your data is secured using strong algorithms and passwords, and your confidential information is protected.

Fortra is a product where one of the ClearSwift Secure E-Mail Gateway solutions is an important security layer that maximizes the protection of files and messages.

To learn more, please contact Damian Gołuch, who is the supervisor of Fortra at Bakotech.