Protect Your Data on Your Flash Drive

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Protect Your Data on Your Flash Drive

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Susan uses public transportation to get to work. She doesn’t want to lug her laptop home with her so she uses a flash drive to store and transport her data with her. However, one day she lost her flash drive on the bus. She was upset because there was some sensitive information about her business on it. She called the lost and found center for a couple of weeks but no one turned her flash drive in. She was worried sick about the consequences.

Flash drives have become extremely popular as a method to store data. It has also become popular because it is so portable. However, because of its size, it is also easy to lose – like Susan discovered.

There are three ways that you can protect the data stored on your flash drive. First, some flash drives come with a hardware encryption system installed on the device. It generates a random password that has a combination of upper case and lower case letters, numbers, and symbols so it is difficult for hackers to figure out. They also have a two-factor authentication system. The only drawback is that these flash drives are more expensive than drives without the encryption system.

The second way to protect your data on your drive is to use a software encryption system. Many drives come with an encryption software pre-installed on the drive. If your drive does not come with that software, download and use TrueCrypt. It puts a password on the folders on your flash drive. It works with any Windows or Mac machine. And the best thing is that the software is free!

The third way to protect the documents on your flash drive is to password protect each individual file. If you use Microsoft Office applications, they all have the capability of adding a password to a document. It is easy to set the password on your different documents. The hardest part is to remember it!