Data Security in Windows 10
Introduction
By design, Windows 10 is more secure than its predecessors Windows 7 and Windows 8.1. That’s what the people from Microsoft say, anyway.
One excellent measuring tool regarding security is how well an OS can protect data. This article examines the subject matter in question from three perspectives:
- Data backup
- Data encryption
- Additional data security measures
Data backup
Before you even proceed to encrypt your data, you should first make a secure copy of it and store it in a safe and trusted place. A clean installation restore point for your Windows 10 can spare you much time. If things go wrong, you can use the save point to restore your OS with a fresh install and start with a clean slate.
Malicious software and online threats can always creep in, but you should also consider the probability of hardware issues that could endanger your data. To make sure your data is safe, use a twofold backup strategy that combines external hard drive storage with an online backup service. Users of Windows 10, for example, can rely on the Windows’ File History feature to easily back up their data to an external drive.
Last but not least, by turning on encryption during a backup, one can double protect valuable data.
Data encryption
When BitLocker — a Windows 10 built-in tool for a full-volume encryption — is enabled, encryption standards called XTS-AES or AES-CBC encrypt every bit of data within an entire drive. The default encryption strength is 128-bit, but Windows 10 users can increase it to 256-bit. Military-grade encryption is a welcome feature — an indispensable safety net of sorts against data loss or theft.
Several prerequisites for enabling BitLocker are:
- Having a device that comes with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) chip — a hardware-based method (Read more...)
*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Infosec Resources authored by Dimitar Kostadinov. Read the original post at: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/infosecResources/~3/ZQ6CHv4rWwE/
