Best free encryption tools
Free utility secures disk data
Encrypting your disk drives and files is not the only way to prevent trojans stealing your confidential data. There are a number of products on the market that achieve the same result by restricting access to particular files or drives to specified programs. One such application is DriveSentry, a product that started life as a commercial application and is now free. As their website states "DriveSentry works by monitoring each application writing to your drives. Only applications you have authorized can write to the drive and all others are blocked. If you can imagine a software firewall monitors internet traffic, well DriveSentry monitors drive traffic...DriveSentry is incredibly versatile as it not only allows you to prevent applications writing to your drives but can also control what file-types they write." I tried it and it works as advertised. It operates like this: you nominate a drive, folder or set of files of a particular type that you want to protect. You then nominate the trusted programs that can legitimately access these protected entities. If another program tries to access or change any of these a popup warning is issued. DriveSentry has some nice features such as a sensible inbuilt set of program access permissions for common file types plus the option of a standard mode and advanced mode of operation. It also provides some additional HIPS-like system protection. For example you get notified of one of your trusted programs gets changed, your browser home page modified or system dlls are altered. It all sounds hunky dory but what do I think of DriveSentry? In a phrase: too noisy. I found myself swamped at times with pop-up warnings. Maybe with more tweaking of the settings things might quieten things down. I don't know; I installed the product after only two days of usage. DriveSentry is not for me, but for others prepared to trade a little annoyance for increased security DriveSentry is a good option particularly at the price. Thanks to subscriber Rick Farrow for the suggestion. Freeware, Windows 2000 through to Vista, 2MB
http://www.drivesentry.com/