What is/are the best practice/s to make your home data efficiently secure?

Question

I ask this because for example, some people save data in a zip file with password but everybody knows that is easily hackable.

Answer are appreciated and open to any OS, any encryption and authentication system, etc.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The best security is physical.
The lock on the door, or a safe.
If your data is that sensitive, do not store it on anything which is connected to a network. Keep it on a removable medium, such a disk, CD, tape, or a flash drive.
When not in use, remove the media and lock it up... or keep it with you at all times. In the case of a flash drive, hang it on your keyring, for instance.
If it's really, really, important, or just plain embarrassing, then put it a safe, or a bank deposit box.

At this point, philosophies diverge. If it's something like crucial customer data, accounting figures, etc. - data which is important to, say, your business - then secure more than one copy, in different places..
If it's research secrets, or pictures of you and your secretary on the last office outing - data that you'd be horribly embarrassed for others to see - the less copies the better... and there's a lot to be said for a little tin box buried under the tree in the back garden....

At some point, you have to recognise that you are spending more money and time on safety precautions than it would cost you to recover the data, but it's entirely up to you to determine where that point occurs.

Answer 2

There are many 3rd party programs on the market that will encrypt data for you. Windows XP has an encryption built into the OS which will keep data secure, but only to your system security policies (so if they're not set up properly, this would be comprimised).

At this point, the only real option you have to keep data from others' eyes is to use a seperate software program that is designed specifically to do just this. Trial versions and free-ware to do just this can be found on download.com or tucows.com.

Answer 3

There are some very good tips found at http://www.tom-cat.com/security.html