The problem with this however, is that although you can quickly and easily configure a new router with basic settings, the start-up wizards usually don’t mention anything about wireless encryption. To be fair some of the top commercial models do, but the basic routers you can pick up for home usage simply ignore encryption because it can be confusing to people with little computer knowledge, and they want to make it as easy as possible. This can be dangerous, as leaving your Wi-Fi connection open and unencrypted could leave you open to all kinds of attacks.

Lets take a situation where someone has bought a new router, plugged it into their Internet connection and started surfing the web using the wireless connection, without setting up any encryption. If this computer user lives in a block of apartments or perhaps in a built up area, the coverage of the router’s wireless transmitter will easily penetrate outside the confines of the home. It’s even possible that houses across a fairly wide street could pick up the signals. Certainly those people living in the immediate vicinity, or in a parked car outside, would be able to simply log on and use the Internet. (You can try it out yourself with a free software like TekWifi)

The computer user may be blissfully unaware that others are using his Internet connection. Or, he might be aware and simply not care. The truth is, this is a dangerous practice. Wi-Fi hijackers may not just be able to use the Internet, with a little networking knowledge; someone could hack into the user’s computer and steal information or vandalize information. If the user keeps passwords or bank details on his laptop, these could be compromised and used to steal money or commit fraud. Personal files, family photographs and emails could all be lifted directly from an unsuspecting computer user with an open Wi-Fi connection, all without them knowing about it. You wouldn’t let strangers walk into your home and start looking about, so why let them into your computer network?

Not only that, but if someone else has access to your Internet connection, they could commit crimes such as fraud, or download illegal content. Technically you could be held liable for this, as an ISP might track illegal activities to your connection. Even though you are not responsible for the crimes, you could end up being asked some serious questions by the authorities. Be safe and set up encryption on your Wi-Fi today!

Check out our guide Find Out Who Is Surfing On Your Wireless Network to check if someone else is using your wi-fi network.

It can go on by using recovery software to gather a list of software that once were installed on the computer but have been deleted by the user. In the end they have access to almost everything if you did not take the necessary measures to make sure that no one is able to access sensitive data.

Protecting your data is essential these days and even if some of you would call me paranoid I think everyone should do it. But, how would one do that ?

This is actually easier than you would have thought. My suggestion would be to use encryption to protect the data. This does mean however that the user has to enter a code to decrypt the data before he can use it which is far better than handing the data on a silver plate to everyone who has physical access to the computer.

Just follow the easy steps outlined below to secure your computer:

Download and install True Crypt on your system. True Crypt is able to encrypt hard drives and partitions with a secure key. I would suggest to use either an external hard drive or make space on a internal hard drive. It is far better to encrypt the complete hard drive.

Be aware that you need at least one unencrypted partition to be able to boot your operating system.

Encrypt the hard drive. I outlined the process in an earlier article called Create a secure data safe with True Crypt.
Now the important part. Move all your sensitive applications to that encrypted partition. I’m thinking of email clients, browsers, p2p applications, ftp programs, documents, pictures, videos and everything else that you do not want to share with anyone.
Make sure you change the data paths in the applications as well. It would not help if you use the email client from the encrypted hard drive but have the mailboxes on an unencrypted one. Move them all to the encrypted hard drive as well.
No one is able to access that data unless they provide the key to decrypt the hard drive. It is theoretically possible to break the algorithm or use brute force. The later would take ages if you use a key with more than 40+ chars.

Other measures that you should undertake could be to clean the caches on exit and using a software like Eraser to regularly delete information about former files on unused disk space.

Do you have additional ideas or methods that you use to protect your data ?

Steganos Locknote is a standalone program which does not have to be installed and adds itself to the encrypted text file to make it possible to decrypt the file without the main program. You either write text in the main window or drag and drop files with the .txt extension into it. Once you are done you provide a password (choose a secure one) and Steganos Locknote creates a executable which contains the information.

Decrypting the file could not be easier. Everyone who is clicking the executable has to provide the password that was chosen during the encryption. A correct password displays the contents, a wrong one of course nothing at all. The only aspect of the software that I do not like is the fact that it only encrypts text files. It does not support word documents for instance or images which would be a great plus.

Still it is small, free and easy to use. If you are like me and use text files to store important information you should give Steganos Locknote a try.