How to Secure your Private Folders

I know that its been very long since I have posted anything for you. So first of all I am really very sorry this delay but I assure you that from now on it won’t be like that. And to make up for this delay I am posting a nice tutorial which can help you secure your private stuff.




Do you have any private stuff that you would to hide from your friends and relatives? Would you want it to be Invisible so that it remains unnoticed by the normal users? But there are software which can display all the folders that are present on the Disk. So What if you can even password protect your folder? I guess having your private folder password protected as well as invisible should be secure enough. But you might think that you may need to have a software for that. Well here is a way to do that without using any additional software and you can show off in front of your friends by making their folders invisible as well as password protected. Here is is step by step procedure to create a password protected folder.

How to create a Password Protected Folder

1. Create a new folder (Right-click -> New -> Folder) and give it any name of your choice. For instance I name it as ABC.

2. Now in this folder place all the important files, documents or any folders that you want to password protect.

3. Now Right-click on this folder (ABC) and select the option Send To -> Compressed (zipped) Folder.

4. Now a new compressed zipped folder gets created next this folder (ABC) with the same name.

5. Double-click on this compressed zipped folder and you should see your original folder (ABC) here.

6. Now goto the File menu and select the option Add a password.
ie: File -> Add a password
Now a small window will pop up and here you can set your desired password. Once the password is set, the folder will ask for the password every time it is opened. Thus you have now created the password protected folder.


How to make it Invisible
1. Now Right-click on this password protected folder and select Properties.

2. At the bottom select the option Hidden and press OK. Now your folder gets invisible (hidden).

3. In order to unhide this folder go to My Computer – >Tools -> Folder options. Switch to View tab, scroll down and under Hidden files and folders you’ll see the following two options

• Do not show hidden files and folders
• Show hidden files and folders

Now select the second option and press OK. Now the invisible folder becomes visible in it’s location. To access it you need the password. To make it invisible again repeat step -1 through step-3 and select the first option and click OK. Now the folder becomes invisible once again.

I hope you like this post. Pass your comments!! Cheers

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12 Security Tips for Shopping Online

The internet is an exciting place to shop. From the comfort of your own armchair you can browse for literally anything, from a new camera, to a holiday or flight. You are not restricted to the stores in your local town, or even country and you can pick up deals at great prices on a whole range of products.



Shopping online isn’t just as safe as handing over your credit card in a store or restaurant. However, if you take care of few things it can be a safe deal. Following are the things you should take care of:

1. Never respond to an email request for credit card details. All reputable companies will conduct transactions with you over a secure website connection.
2. Remember to never respond to any email advertisement, and only visit sites you know or have book marked, and verify the address before browsing further.
3. Only buy from trusted brands and websites.
4. To ensure that you only do business with legitimate companies check to see if they have a contact number, an actual retail store and a printed catalogue to browse.
5. Check a website’s returns and privacy policy before going ahead with a purchase.
6. Check that you are entering your details through a secure payment connection. You should notice when you click through to the transaction page of a company’s website that the URL in the address bar begins https:// (instead of the normal http://). This is the standard encrypted communication mechanism on the internet and means that your credit card details are being sent securely.
7. Beware of deals that seem too good to be true.
8. Beware of the limitations of the internet. The internet may not the best place to buy clothes or other products you need to see, touch or try on.
9. All reputable websites use secure payment systems. These are either a company’s own system or a 3rd party system such as Worldpay or Paypal.
10. When conducting a transaction over the internet, look for the yellow padlock in the grey status bar at the bottom of your browser page. This is an indication that the transaction is being conducted over a secure connection.
11. As an extra precaution check to see if there’s a gold lock at the bottom of the right hand corner of the browser. If they don’t include any of these reliable indicators, you might want to think twice before handing over your credit card number.
12. To be on the safe side, and avoid Internet fraudsters, it’s also a good idea to install and use security software such as Kaspersky Internet Security. It can provide you with industry-leading security services that will provide you more protection against the latest threats.

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Hide your Drives or Lock your Drives

To hide your drives, follow these steps………..


Open Registry (go to run command, type "regedit" and press enter)
then
go to this key
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

now right click in right side pane and create DWORD Value (blue color)
Rename it as "NoViewOnDrive" (for locking drive)
or
Rename it as "NoDrives" (for Hiding drive)
double click on it and put some numbers to lock ur desired Drive and click ok.

DRIVE NOS.
FOR A : 1
FOR C : 4
FOR D : 8
FOR E : 16
FOR F : 32
FOR G : 64
FOR H : 128

finally restart or log-off the computer to take effect.
Keep in mind that "0" is Default Value to Disable or remove this setting..
After locking the drive when u try to open it, u will see a msgbox like this
"This operation has been cancelled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator"

To remove the restrictions, follow the reverse process and delete the DWORD file created earlier…………….

Hope, it is useful in protecting the system………….

If you liked it then do comment on it…………..

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Experts Break Mobile Phone Security

The algorithm used to protect the security of communications on 80 percent of cell phones in the world can be relatively easily cracked to intercept calls, according to cryptographers at the 26th Chaos Communication Congress, a computer conference in Berlin. A German researcher presented an attack on the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM)--showing it's possible to eavesdrop on cell phone calls and intercept SMS messages. Mobile phones worldwide use GSM, though in the United States many carriers, including Verizon and Sprint PCS, use a competing standard.



Karsten Nohl, who has a PhD in computer science from the University of Virginia, says he demonstrated the GSM attack to encourage people to develop a more sophisticated means of protection. GSM encryption was introduced in 1987, and first showed cracks in the 1990s. Nohl points to a series of academic papers illustrating problems with A5/1, which is used to protect GSM calls.

Nohl says that despite these concerns, people trust GSM with ever more sensitive data. In particular, there have been recent moves to use the standard for mobile banking, payments, and authentication.

Working with a group of hackers, Nohl generated and published a "rainbow table" for A5/1. This table is an optimized set of codes that would allow an attacker to quickly find the key protecting a given phone conversation. The group also cracked another algorithm that protects conversations by shifting communications between mobile phones and base stations to a variety of different frequencies during a call.

"It would be a good time to start transitioning GSM systems to more advanced cryptographic algorithms," says David Wagner, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who was involved in work in the early 2000s that proved it was possible to break A5/1. "We should be grateful. We don't always get advance warning that it's time to upgrade a security system before the bad guys start taking advantage of it."

Wagner says the research brings no surprises. It simply demonstrates that attacking GSM's encryption is more feasible than previously realized. "The bottom line for cell phone users is about the same," he says. "Interception of GSM calls is possible, but takes serious technical sophistication." Intelligence agencies, however, are probably following this closely, Wagner adds, since they're in a position to use these techniques to decrypt GSM calls en masse, and may already be doing so.

The GSM Association, a London-based organization that "represents the interest of the worldwide mobile communications industry," begs to differ. "All in all, we consider this research, which appears to be motivated in part by commercial considerations, to be a long way from being a practical attack on GSM," the organization said in a statement. "Before a practical attack could be attempted, the GSM call has to be identified and recorded from the radio interface. So far, this aspect of the methodology has not been explained in any detail, and we strongly suspect that the teams attempting to develop an intercept capability have underestimated its practical complexity."


Do comment on it....

Enjoy....

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