How to Hack-Proof Your Files

Are you the type of virtual assistant who loves to work in a coffee shop? If you are logged on and using your laptop in a coffee shop, remeber that your files are vulnerable to eavesdroppers. Unscrupulous techies can vaccum up your files anytime so the best thing to do is encrypt the hard -- or work from home.

If you still insist in opening your laptop at the coffee shop, here are some freeware (donationware) that you can use to protect your files.

TrueCrypt
This is free (donationware), open source "virtual drive" encryption software, and it's available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

DiskCryptor
DiskCryptor is a derivative of TrueCrypt, which is tailored for full drive encryption. It is particularly good for removable devices like USB flash drives.

FreeOTFE 
FreeOTFE is also an open source disk encryption program. It operates exactly like a normal disk, except that anything written to one of them is encrypted.

OpenSSL File-encryption 
This encryption now works on Windows, not just Linux.