Tag Archives | free encryption software

S10 Password Vault a free password manager

/ 11 January, 2011 / Computer Security / Permalink

Secure offline password manager

The problem using always the same password is that if one of the sites you are member of gets cracked then that person will get access to all of your other accounts as well, using a secure password manager is the best way to be able to use a hard to crack passphrase for each website and remembering all of them at the same time.

S10 Password vault is a free offline password manager utility that uses the uncrackable AES256 cipher for encryption, it foils keyloggers, autolocks after a predetermined set time, tells you if your password is strong enough or generates it for you, and it has a portable edition. All of this in just 670Kb, a really tiny application with lots of great features.

When you install S10 Password Vault for the first time it will create an encrypted .s10p database where all of your passwords will be stored, make sure to back it up and do not worry about losing it as only with the masterpassword it is possible to look at its content.

The coolest time saving feature of S10 Password Vault is that to log into a site you won’t even need to type in your password, as long as S10 Password Vault is open you can use a keyboard shortcut and S10 Password Vault will automatically fill in the password for you.

The only downside I found with S10 Password Vault is that the help file is online, it could probably be improved if a PDF file with the manual could be made available for download, I also think that the password manager window and fonts could benefit from being a little bigger than they actually are.

S10 Password Vault

S10 Password Vault

What I liked most is the structure of the folder hierarchy that helps to get a quick access to your passwords, the autologin feature that saves you time by entering the password for you, and the embedded anti keylogger that sends lots of random hidden decoy keystrokes to obscure the real password as it is typed, very useful to use in conjunction with the portable S10 Password Vault edition at a public computer.

There is a premium, very cheap, business edition of S10 Password Vault that includes automatic central back up of employee passwords, central control over configuration settings and ability to use a private synchronization server. S10 Password Vault is an entirely free password manager for home users, if you like the software you can make a donation to the developer.

Visit S10 Password Vault homepage

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Password protect folders with Secure Folder

/ 8 January, 2011 / Encryption Software / Permalink

Free security software to password protect folder

This free open source computer security software does much more than password protecting your folders, it can also lock them, encrypt the data inside and hide the folders from view. I tried to find a folder I had previously hidden using Secure Folder and Windows search did not manage to locate the folder and its contents, looking at where I knew the folder physically was also failed to reveal its existence, only using Secure Folder and entering the password allowed me to view the contents once again.

This free software of only 750Kb in size will help you hide your confidential data in shared computers, but if you install it, its presence in the computer could arise suspicions and anyone with access to the computer can use the software, although they would still need the password to view the hidden folder, it is probably better if you use the portable version of Secure Folder. Secure Folder includes a screenshot utility, not sure what for, and a privacy sweeper that will erase the Windows prefetch files, the clipboard, the recycle bin and recently opened folders. There is also a file shredder where you can drag and drop the files you want to securely wipe choosing how many times the file needs to be overwritten with random data.

Secure Folder hide Windows folder

Secure Folder hide Windows folder

If you forget your password Secure Folder FAQ states that you can email your settings.xml file to the author in order to recover your data, to make sure your data can not be recovered by anyone make sure to encrypt your data! Secure Folder uses the AES256-bit algorithm for encryption , the password is hashed using SHA 512bit but stored in plain text(on its hashed form) in settings.xml. Unless you specifically choose to encrypt the data, simply password protecting a folder will keep its contents in the clear, useful to fool a low level adversary but useless protection against the big boys.

Update August 2011: The download file appears to have been removed (dead project?),  I am removing the link.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/securefolder/

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Rohos Mini Drive free USB thumbdrive encryption without admin rights

/ 5 January, 2011 / Encryption Software / Permalink

USB thumbdrive freeware encryption software

You could use Truecrypt traveller mode to encrypt your data on a USB stick but in order to use Truecrypt on a computer you will need administration rights and this is not possible in public computers like Internet cafe and libraries. Rohos Mini Drive USB encryptrion doesn’t require administrative privileges to open your password protected USB thumbdrive partition on a guest PC.

Rohos Mini Drive uses on the fly encryption making sure no data is left unencrypted on the guest PC after you have finished viewing it, there is a secure virtual keyboard included to stop key-loggers capturing your password and data is encrypted using AES256 a well known secure algorithm approved by the US Department of Defense to encrypt secret information.

There is a feature called ‘Hide and Encrypt Folder’ that allows to encrypt profile folders of applications like Skype, Google Chrome and Firefox as well as regular PC folders. This feature locks applications data with a password and ciphers the content strong encryption, when your encrypted USB drive is not plugged in to PC the applications will be unable to start.

Rohos Mini Drive encrypted USB thumbdrive

Rohos Mini Drive encrypted USB thumbdrive

This encryption software needs less than 1MB for stand alone installation and creates an encrypted .rdi file where to store your data, it includes Rohos Disk Browser to view and manage your encrypted files, this is very useful as it will help you to avoid using the guest computer Windows explorer and stop you from leaving temporary files behind.

The free version of Roho Mini Drive has a 2GB encrypted partition size limitation, you will need administration rights to preinstall Rohos Mini Drive on the USB flash drive first and after that this secure encrypted USB thumbdrive can be used anywhere without any admin privileges.

The company behind Rohos Mini Drive claims that there is no backdoor whatsoever, if you lose your password, that is it, that also means that nobody can force the company to decrypt data held in your USB thumb drive because they have no way of doing it.

Visit Rohos Mini Drive homepage

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Review free steganography software SilentEye

/ 12 December, 2010 / Encryption Software / Permalink

What is Steganography?

Steganography, is the science of concealing information in such a way that the existence of the message will only be known to the sender and the recipient, anyone else looking at the message recipient will not suspect there is something hidden inside or it has a meaning, this kind of covert communication is also known as security through obscurity.

Covert communications using Steganography can be traced back to 440 BC when Histiaeus shaved the head of  one of his most trusted messengers and and tattooed a message on it, waiting for his hair to grow back before sending him off to deliver the message.

Computer software implementing steganography, aka stego, often uses encryption as a double safety net so that if the hidden message is ever discovered the opponent will still need a password to decrypt it.

SilentEye steganography review

This crossplatform open source free steganography software available for Windows, MAC and Linux offers a very simple and easy to use interface, SilentEye can hide messages or files inside images or sound files, at the moment restricted to .bmp images and .wav sound files but the developers plan to support data hiding inside .jpg and .mp3 files in their next release.

It is important to understand that the data you hide inside a file must be considerable smaller than the innocuous carrier, there is no perfect science to know the proportion of data that can be hidden inside a carrier, many factors come to play like data compression efficiency.

I normally hide files that take 10% of the space of the carrier file at most, after extensively using steganography to hide text messages inside images, 10%  is what I have found to be the size closer to the limit allowed, you need not to worry about attempting to hide a file too big inside the carrier as the stego software will warn you of this and you will not be able to carry out the operation until the data you want to hide is reduced or you choose a bigger carrier file.

SilentEye allows you to use drag and drop to encode and decode data, the encoding window allows you to choose encoding format, output image’s quality, pixel colours used and other settings. You can type your secret message directly into the program prior to hiding it inside the file or have a .txt or any other file ready and merge it directly with the covert file.

Besides the pretty interface this free steganographic software has a plug-in system to integrate new cryptographic algorithms, sound AES encryption being already available at present time and you can encrypt your data before hiding it.

SilentEye free Steganography software

SilentEye free Steganography software

Conclusion open source stego SilentEye

You can find more advanced steganographic software but few of them are as easy to use as SilentEye is, the best part of this free stego tool is that it is open source and it allows anyone with coding knowledge to write plugins for it. Source code is also available for download and you can compile SilentEye yourself.

I do not think that hiding messages in .bmp and .wav files is good enough as these files are normally huge in size and very little used nowadays and it would suspicious for people to exchange songs as a .wav.

Once the developers release their planned plugins to hide data inside .jpg and .mp3 files, SilentEye will be one of the best and easier to use steganographic tools for people who want to get the job done with a point and click mouse, totally suitable for newbies with little computer knowledge.

Visit SilentEye homepage

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Review free encryption software: File Encryption 2.1

/ 14 September, 2010 / Encryption Software / Permalink

Not the most original of the names, File Encryption is an open source program using symmetric encryption to make sure your files are safe from prying eyes, and best of all it is free.

File Encryption also allows for full encryption of the data contained inside a directory, but not the directory itself, this is called “Enable encrypting entire directories” inside “Settings” and it is not enabled by default. The name is highly misleading because the folder never gets encrypted, it is only the data inside which does, creating an encrypted file for each one of the files you have.

You can password protect the encryption software too, if you are sharing computer nobody will be able to open the encryption software without your password but I fail to see how that helps much, anyone can download it off the internet for free.

File Encryption good stuff

This security software is free and open source and it includes an amazing number of encryption algorithms to choose from. You can encrypt your files with Blowfish 448, Twofish 256, Cast 256,Ice 64, Mars 1248, Tea 128, Serpent 256, AES256 and many more.

Encrypted files are given the extension .enc and coloured red in the navigation panel, this makes them to stand out, hidden files are also showed. This encryption software also includes a basic file shredding utility and allows for automatic deletion of the data once encrypted.

Files can be marked as hidden after encryption, one of the best features, files marked as hidden can not be seen in the computer unless it is with specialist computer forensics software and will fool Joe Doe. File Encryption navigation panel shows all of the hidden files making it easy for you to see your hidden encrypted data.

File Encryption software

File Encryption software

File Encryption bad stuff

The help file is only available online and it is very poor, with very ambigous information no specifics or screenshots at all are included in File Encryption online help “manual”, if it can be called that.

All of the decrypted files are created with the extension .dec if you decrypt a picture you will find this is created as name.jpg.dec making it impossible to open until you manually change the .dec extension to .jpg

There is no password strength indicator, nothing tells you if the password you are using is weak or strong. File Encryption is a Windows only software.

Conclusion review File Encryption

I was pretty dissapointed that this security software only works for encryption of single files and that the navigation panel is archaic, you need quite a few clicks to get to your file.

My biggest problem was that every single decrypted file was presented to me with the .dec extension and I had to manually change it to the original file extension in order to view it.

File Encryption usability and help manual need to improve a lot, I think you can find better free encryption software than this one.

I only found two reasons why someone might want to use File Encryption over something else: the wide selection of encryption algorithms available and being able to hide the files in Windows after they are encrypted.

I got an overall feeling of a very basic encryption program, my main concern was not with security, it was with usability and the lack of a proper help manual.

Visit File Encryption Website

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Review TrulyMail, secure email encryption client

/ 12 September, 2010 / Computer Security / Permalink

Review TrulyMail Portable 2.7.9

TrulyMail wants to be a secure email replacement and it allows for easy sending of encrypted emails, including encryption of email subject, body and attachments, as well as return receipts, automatic digital signatures and cacellation of messages after they have been sent (and not read).

TrulyMail good points

TrulyMail stops spam easily because it is invitation based (similar to whitelisting), you know the sender of the message is the real sender and you can track which messages were received by the recipients and which were not, TrulyMail knows when your messages are delivered.

This E-mail client for encrypted communications also has advanced message management features like an enhanced address book, email filter, spell checker, HTML email messages, colour coding message tags, voicemail messages and delaying the sending of your message for some time. Another great feature at TrulyMail is that it will read your emails out and loud with a robotic voice with just the click of a button.

I found very useful that TrulyMail has a portable version, this allows for installation of the email client in a USB thumbdrive and the possibility of sending encrypted email from a public computer minimizing the risk of interception by the network administrators.

TrulyMail is also compliant with the HIPPA, a US law that requiring healthcare professionals to communicate protected health information securely so that nobody can intercept it.

TrulyMail interface secure email client

TrulyMail interface secure email client

TrulyMail bad stuff

If you want to send an email to someone using another email client they will have to give it up and download TrulyMail instead, although the developers claim to be working on a message viewer for those not using TrulyMail.

This secure email software only works in Windows and since your friends will need to be using TrulyMail to read your encrypted messages, this means that anyone using a MAC or Linux computer will not be able to receive your encrypted emails. The interface is only available in English (US), and the software it is not open source.

TrulyMail Email client update

TrulyMail Email client update

Review TrulyMail Conclusion

This free email client makes it easy to send and receive encrypted email messages to your friends, if you know nothing about how PGP/GnuPGP works and want to email data securely then TrulyMail will fulfil your needs.

However, the problem I see is that both parts need to be using TrulyMail email client, you could as well learn about how PGP email works or download ThunderBird and the Engimail plugin this way it won’t matter what email client your friends are using, as long as they can decrypt PGP messages. I can not see myself telling my contacts what email client they must use and I also like to have control over my encryption keys.

Even if you do not use encryption, TrulyMail still makes for a great free email client with some very nice features.

Visit TrulyMail, for free email encryption

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Free easy to use encryption software R-Crypto

/ 1 September, 2010 / Encryption Software / Permalink

R-Crypto Data Security and disk encryption software will help you hide all of your internet pornography, financial details and other sensitive data from prying eyes. This free encryption software will create an encrypted virtual disk only visible after you enter the appropiate password, inside that encrypted disk you will be able to store anything you like and after closing it,  the encrypted data will remain unaccessible for anyone without the right password.

R-Crypto encrypts data using the cryptographic infrastructure of the Microsoft operating system, this can include Microsoft AES crypto provider with key lengths of 128, 192 and 256 bits, for the password it will use the well known uncrackable Secure Hash Algorithm SHA-512. It can also use the Data Encryption Standard DES, or 3DES but it is highly reccomended to stick to AES as DES is not a safe encryption algorithm anymore.

R-Crypto constitutes a robust and safe encryption program with no backdoors, best of all R-Crypto is completely free of charge. If you want to hide your internet pornography from your wife and others, R-Crypto will be very useful and it is easy to use for beginners.

With R-Crypto you will have access to your encrypted disk control with an easy to use wizard that will guide you through the creation of the encrypted disk and it will also allow to change the size of the encrypted disk easily and it has many more features like being able to wipe the encrypted hard disk to make sure this is irrecoverable.

R-Crypto Data Security screenshot

R-Crypto Data Security screenshot

Because R-Crypto uses Microsoft cryptographic infrastructure, it is ideal for companies that require certification for such products to meet certain governmental or corporate standards, as well as individual users with high security and privacy needs.

Visit R-Crypto free data encryption software

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Review: Free encryption software SafeHouse Explorer

/ 20 August, 2010 / Encryption Software / Permalink

Free easy to use encryption software

SafeHouse Explorer is an unbreakable free encryption software that keeps your confidential files inside a giant data vault which can only be accessed after entering your secret password, it will hide your files and make them impossible to view and copy without the right password. After you enter your secret password, you access your files using SafeHouse Explorer’s drag-and-drop Explorer-like interface.

Secure TwoFish 256bits encryption

SafeHouse explorer encryption uses Twofish 256bits for encryption, it can create encrypted vaults as large as 2Terabytes and works in Windows 7. Your files and folders are fully accessible using a new disk drive letter added to Windows to represent your data vault, any files you drag and drop to this new drive letter will be instantly and automatically protected.

Encryption password hash function diagram

Encryption password hash function diagram

The Sheriff’s Office fails to break SafeHouse encryption

This free encryption software to conceal your confidential data, like utility bills, bank statements and internet porn is unaccessible even for the FBI, SafeHouse Explorer encryption has no backdoor whatsoever as The King County Sheriff’s Office found out to much of their dismay during a criminal investigation, when they realised they couldn’t open a large section of data that was encrypted using Safehouse.

Reference in the Seattle P-I: Expert will try to crack encrypted files

SafeHouse Explorer encryption conclusion

SafeHouse Explorer is totally suitable for beginners, you will be hard pushed to find another encryption software so user friendly, at the same time you can have peace of mind that the free edition of SafeHouse encryption is unbreakable, the paid for SafeHouse products have some nice extra features but if you are hard pressed for cash do not need to worry, the free edition works just fine.

Visit SafeHouse Explorer free encryption

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