In case you have been using the popular encryption product, please pay close attention to the information we share in this article, since your data privacy is likely to be in danger. TrueCrypt's recent, mysterious end-of-life announcement has shocked the crypto-world and a huge number of worldwide users. The announcement officially states that Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues
and that the development of TrueCrypt was ended in 5/2014 after Microsoft terminated support of Windows XP. You should migrate any data encrypted by TrueCrypt to encrypted disks or virtual disk images supported on your platform.
Apart from the short message on the site, there has been no clear explanation to what happened and why the software stopped existing. Many cryptographic authorities and security sites have commented on the unexpected event. Read here what Bruce Schneier has to say.
So what are your alternatives now? We wouldn't want to generalize, but open source and free products often seem to lack consistent support, updates and full audit whereas paid for software are expected to be accountable for all that. The TrueCrypt site in question recommends BitLocker as an alternative to migrate to, but after carefully checking the software we would like to draw your attention to some problematic features you need to be aware of if you go for BitLocker. If you are looking for a secure alternative to TrueCrypt and BitLocker, check out our advanced encryption software, east-tec SafeBit.
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BitLocker only works on selected Windows platforms, such as: Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista Enterprise/Ultimate, Windows 7 Enterprise/Ultimate and Windows 8 Pro/Enterprise. east-tec SafeBit works on any Windows platform and edition.
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BitLocker can only encrypt full volumes, or entire HDDs. It makes the encryption process slow and you might not even want to encrypt an entire partition for the sake of selected files/folders. Say, you have 5 confidential files you would like to encrypt. It will only take a few seconds to create a new encrypted Safe of the desired size with east-tec SafeBit and place your 5 confidential files into it. Files/folders placed into Safes created with east-tec SafeBit are encrypted on-the-fly.
Further features of east-tec SafeBit include:
On-the-fly encryption
Encrypt folders and files on-the-fly with east-tec SafeBit. On-the-fly encryption means that data is automatically encrypted right before it is saved and decrypted right after it is loaded, without any user intervention. The user will not be aware of the mechanism behind the disk encryption software, being fully transparent to the user, giving the look and feel of another hard drive.
Military-strength encryption algorithm
east-tec SafeBit is a disk encryption software that uses the strong 256-bit AES encryption algorithm to scramble and make the data unreadable. AES was also selected by the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) to be the US Federal Government standard to protect personal and commercial information, so with east-tec SafeBit you can sleep without worries knowing that your files are protected.
Safeguard data on removable devices or in the cloud
You can transfer your encrypted safes via email, upload or backup, move or copy them to external hard drives, USB sticks, smart cards or other portable devices or why not, upload them to the cloud (via Dropbox, Microsoft SkyDrive or Google Drive) and take them with you, wherever you go, and continue to access your encrypted data anytime using east-tec SafeBit. Our disk encryption solution gives you the power of taking your sensitive data anywhere you want without the fear of data loss, data breaches or laptop theft.
Use USB & Flash Memory Cards as Keys
east-tec SafeBit allows you to save the passwords when creating an encrypted safe on your personal removable disk device, such as USB key stick, memory card, and use them later as a key to open your safes. This avoids the risk of login data being stored on your computer, that could be easily retrieved by a hacker. For better security, the password is encoded when saving it on a USB drive.
Protection against KeyLoggers
A keylogger is an application that reads all your keystrokes from your keyboard, being able to intercept and steal your password. By using our built-in virtual keyboard, you will be able to enter passwords without the fear that it will be caught by a key logger software.
Protection against viruses, trojans and hackers
Improves the security offered by an antivirus, protecting your important files against online and inside threats. While your confidential documents are in an encrypted closed vault, viruses, trojans, spyware programs and hackers will not have access to your important files. This makes east-tec SafeBit the last line of defense if your current virus protection program fails.
Get east-tec SafeBit and keep your confidential files protected!