This means that it could possibly contain unidentified security flaws. Once you’re logged in, everything is visible.Īnother issue with BitLocker is that it is not open source. However, it’s no good if you want to hide files when someone else is using your computer.
This is an okay solution if you’re worried about your computer being stolen or someone trying to access it when you’re not around. But as soon as you log in with your password, everything is decrypted. When you have the software enabled, all files are encrypted when you log out of your device. Unfortunately, you can’t choose what you encrypt with BitLocker. It uses 128- or 256-bit AES encryption to encrypt all the data on your hard drive. If you’re a Windows user, you can likely take advantage of the full disk encryption software, BitLocker, which comes preinstalled on Windows Vista and Pro and Enterprise versions of Windows 7 and above. Although in both cases, there tends to be more available for Windows users than MacOS adopters. For most smartphone or tablet users, device encryption is built-in and relatively straightforward.įor desktop computers, depending on your operating system, there may be built-in encryption features, as well as several options for additional software. To start off, I’ll look at one of the most basic measures you may want to take to protect your data, and that’s to encrypt your device.