Obsessing over encrypting every single file you own on your hard drive and in your cloud storage is kind of like that. We could improve our security and get front doors made of thick metal with bank-vault-grade locks, but that would be an awful hassle - not to mention expensive. It’s a frightening thought, but the locks on our house and apartment doors would quickly fall to a determined thief with a bump key. If not, don’t worry about the encryption. The real question is: Does it need to be secure? If so, you might want to use encryption. However, the photos from your last vacation and that Word document with your résumé really isn’t something you need to worry about securing so much. Sensitive tax and business documents - you may want to encrypt those, especially if you’re backing them up online or emailing them to someone else. If you’re encrypting all your funny cat photos, you’re probably just wasting your time.Įven an average computer user may sometimes - but probably rarely - want to use encryption. Setting up encryption can be a headache and going through the trouble of encrypting all the files you upload to the cloud also takes more forethought and work.
Home versions of Windows 7 and the standard edition of Windows 8.1 running on older hardware don’t offer easy default encryption.
However, if you’re a normal desktop or laptop user, there’s no need to upgrade to the Professional edition of Windows and set up BitLocker, encrypt the external drives containing your term papers and cat photos, or go through the process of setting up TrueCrypt to encrypt your entire system drive. We’re not saying you need to disable that encryption at all. If encryption is enabled by default, don’t worry about it - it should be convenient enough to use.
RELATED: How to Easily Encrypt Files on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X We’re focusing on the average computer user here, not someone who has something serious to hide from law enforcement.
(And actually, a laptop sitting in a car shouldn’t have this sort of database on it in the first place!)Įncryption could potentially protect your data from being searched by law enforcement, but in a serious investigation you’d likely be compelled to disclose your encryption key. Of course this sort of data should be encrypted, but we’re focusing more on average users here. These are intended to prevent the terrible stories we hear about business laptops being stolen out of cars, and those laptops having massive databases containing millions of customer credit card numbers on them. The Business Case: For businesses, there may be various commercial guidelines or rules requiring the use of encryption.Almost all of your personal files likely don’t require this sort of encryption, though. Storing or Sending Sensitive Data Online: When storing something particularly sensitive - perhaps archives of tax documents that contain personal details like your social-security number - in online storage or emailing it to someone, you may want to use encryption.The thief probably doesn’t care about most of your data, though - photos of your dog, your MP3 collection, and any sort of videos you might have downloaded won’t be important to them. But, if you have sensitive documents on your computer, encryption does make sense. Realistically, your average laptop thief probably just wants the hardware and will probably wipe the drive quickly. Protecting Sensitive Data If Your Laptop is Stolen: If your laptop is stolen, encryption will prevent a thief from booting it up and looking through your sensitive data for financial information and other sensitive things.Here’s are the situations where encryption will actually do something for you: Let’s get away from the emotional component of wanting to lock down access to all your files so only you can view them. RELATED: What Is Encryption, and How Does It Work?