Affordable pc encryption software.

[nurkvinny]

My aunt owns a small company with 4-5 employees. The nature of her company demands they run an encryption software program. PLEASE give me your suggestions on cheap to medium priced solutions. Thank you!

[Tractor]

Windows comes with EFS (encrypting file system) and Bitlocker drive encryption. Either would work to protect files from anyone stealing and trying to read them. Individual files up to whole drives can be encrypted.

 

Personally if security was a necessary part of my businesses IT needs I'd consider getting a dedicated system to act as server and run at least MS small business server or 2012 server essentials and get the company running under an active directory domain, file server, cloud backed up through something like azure, AWS, etc and do it right from the start.

 

There's a little bit of costs involved but in the long run things will run smoother. I see every day, small companies running a mix of XP through windows 10 machines on unsecure LAN's and even wireless LAN's with no security or backup solution in mind.

 

Let me know if you got any questions on using Windows to do this, I'd enjoy to helping out.

[nurkvinny]

I think she's tried getting bitlocker to work and was unsuccessful. Is it (should it be) easy? Edited December 6, 2016 by nurkvinny

[Tractor]

If she's not a windows PC tech then bitlocker could be pretty hard to use due to some things that need to be configured. If you wanted to encrypt each PC then you'd need a second hard disk in each one or at least a second "data" partition on the single disks. You encrypt the data disk or partition, not the system partition.

 

The simple cheap and dirty solution is pick a PC with a second disk in it and turn bitlocker ON on that disk and share it out to the user names within the LAN's workgroup. Also make sure all the authorized names have read/write access as needed. This way everyone with a username has access to the files otherwise only the author can use the files.

 

As I mentioned the best method is an AD domain with a corp hierarchy with rights being managed by a secure server.

[acklac7]

Truecrypt.

 

 

Oh Wait...

[ShowHBK]

Truecrypt.

 

 

Oh Wait...

 

Made me LawL :lol::lol:

 

Take a look into AxCrypt, I'v used it in the past and its actually an awesome piece of software. You drag and drop files to be encrypted and its super simple to use. For full drive encryption... just use bitlocker or Symantec Endpoint Encryption. the Symantec option is $180 a year, but its worth every penny if you are willing to pay.

[unfunnyryan]

if they don't know what they're doing, no free or paid encryption is going to make them any more secure

 

you cant put big locks on the front door when you have someone leaving a window open

[Second Gen]

Should be million videos out there on how to setup bit-locker on the PC's. I think you need to be running the pro version with Windows 7 and to get it working with Win 10 you have to have a modern motherboard (TPM module ver 1.2). Agreed a little with Ryan as you need to more importantly have a great backup solution in place to deal with the real issue hitting many companies (Ransomware/Encryption). That shit is a real pain in the arse. Symantec has a couple as does many of the other players. Just make sure to store the special key & instructions no matter what vendor you select.

 

GL too

[Tractor]

BitLocker works with or without TPM. Much simpler without it. TPM is designed to prevent someone from walking out the door with the computer and hacking into it later by breaking the windows user accounts which are relatively easy to break. In a correctly set up office TPM is something you would put on the servers. No data should be stored on the workstations, thats always asking for trouble.