It is an unfortunate fact that there are people out there who want to steal information from your computer, and you need to take steps to protect yourself and your company. Anyone who keeps personal or confidential information on their computer should ensure that they take the necessary precautions so that if the files should fall into the wrong hands the thieves will not be able to open and read them.
The very first step to protecting important documents is to protect your computer, especially if you own a laptop and regularly travel with it. If you do not have a password on your computer, you should. Otherwise you are leaving your entire system open for anyone to come along and take the contents. To add a password to your system, go to your Control Panel and click on User Accounts. In there you will see an option to create a password. Make sure your password isn’t something that can be easily guessed, like your birthday or kid’s names.
If you are part of a network you may require your System Administrator to help you set a password for your computer, since Administrator access is usually needed.
Unfortunately, while password protecting is a good idea, it will not protect individual files should someone get past your password or hack into your files over the Internet. So any file you have that you would not want anyone to have access to should be password protected by taking the following action:
- Click the Office Button in the top left-hand corner of your document
- Select the Prepare option and then click Encrypt Document from the list
- Enter a password and click Save.
Make sure you keep track of your passwords so you can open your documents!
A second part of protecting your important documents is making sure that should something happen to your computer that you can still get access to your files. Power surges, computer problems and human error all contribute to lost files every year, and if your documents are truly important then you should be keeping a copy of them off your computer. There are a few ways you can do this:
CD-ROM: If you have a CD writing drive you can copy all your files onto the CD and store it in a safe place. There are a few cons to this method: you have to remember to back up your files regularly, the CD could get lost, damaged or stolen and if you keep your computer and the CD in the same place they could both perish if there is a fire.
USB Flash Drive: These handy little drives can clip onto your keychain and you can easily carry it with you. Again you will have to remember to backup your files, but at least you will always know where your files are.
Online Storage: Many companies are now offering online storage solutions. You simply copy the files to your own folder online and you are done. As a bonus your files are offsite and protected from anyone or anything that could destroy them. The monthly fees for this service are quite reasonable, but you will want to ensure that proper safety and security is in place before you commit your files.
Tue, Dec 23, 2008
Password Protection