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Encryption: An alien concept?

July 29th, 2006 · No Comments


Everyone has a right to privacy. Just because you’re happy to share your health and financial dataprotection.jpghistory with close family doesn’t mean you want strangers to read it over the internet. You don’t copy the whole world on your emails for the same reason that you don’t receive bank statements on postcards.

The threat to privacy is ever-present. As recently as 2001, the Sircam computer virus started stealing random files from host computers, infecting them and sending them further. The virus spread rapidly: many could not fight the temptation to open an unsolicited file from a contact that held their diary, accounts or – in the worst cases – poetry. Each time an infected file was opened, the virus infiltrated another machine.

Sircam is now under control and presents little threat to the prudent majority who use antivirus software. Yet, we still face the threat of hackers, and, increasingly, they are backed by criminal cartels. Phishing and identity theft are fast rising crimes, fed by personal data that is often stolen from computers.

It is important to use an intelligent blend of personal firewalls, antivirus, antispam and common sense to defend your computer from malicious software. But new threats emerge all the time and hardware is always at risk from loss or theft. If your laptop gets left on a train, there’s every chance someone will boot it up to see what’s on it before returning it. The only way to be sure that somebody can’t access your data – even if they can obtain a copy of it – is to use encryption. Encryption: An alien concept? - IT Observer

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