Every day, a large amount of sensitive information and data are being transferred through emails or movable devices. Security threats increase as emails are uncontrollable after leaving the senders while movable devices can be lost or stolen easily. Hence, it is important to secure sensitive information and data so that undesirable consequences can be avoided even though they fall into the hands of malicious people.

 

Encryption is one of the best ways to make data secure and private. The encryption algorithm is used to transform data into a meaningless jumble. No one can read the meaningless jumble unless they have the associated key to make the encrypted data readable again.

 

The SecureZIP encryption software is an application for zipping files to save storage space as well as encrypting files with password control to protect information. Here are some key features of SecureZIP.

 

User Interface

 

There are two user interfaces, Fluent and Conventional, in SecureZIP for you to choose. The former is ribbon style and the latter is the traditional menu system. You can simply drag and drop files into the SecureZIP interface to perform file encryption or compression. Below are the screenshot images of the Fluent and Conventional interfaces.

 

Fluent Interface

 

Conventional Interface

Strong Encryption Method

Strong encryption is always preferred since it is far more secure than the traditional ZIP encryption. SecureZIP supports both passphrase- and digital certificate-based encryption. The same passphrase is used to encrypt and to decrypt with passphrase-based encryption. Digital certificate-based encryption offers higher levels of security than passphrase-based. With certificate-based encryption, a certificate's public key is used to encrypt while the certificate's private key is used to decrypt.

For the strong encryption methods, SecureZIP offers two algorithms for your selection: Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and Triple Data Encryption Algorithm (3DES). The default has been set to AES 256-bit encryption.

 

Integration with Microsoft Office

SecureZIP not only works alone to perform the zipping and encryption functions, but also integrates well with Microsoft Office. It allows you to open ZIP files, save zipped and encrypted files directly to the storage media and set SecureZIP Options in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Secure emails and attachments

SecureZIP directly integrates with Microsoft Outlook to make sending secure messages quickly and efficiently. You can configure SecureZIP to secure emails and attachments sent automatically or on an individual basis. You can also re-encrypt messages and attachments when forwarding emails to others.

In view of its versatility and ease of use, the SecureZip encryption software is now being recommended for use by departments as a general tool for data protection.

References

 

1. SecureZIP for Windows Desktop
http://www.pkware.com/software/securezip/windows

 

2. SecureZIP User Guide
http://www.ncm2.xyz/csc/deptweb/education/SecureZIP%20User%20Guide.pdf