DATA sharing is now part of day-to-day business life.

It enables basic digital collaborative working. IT software applications, e-mail applications and websites make it easy to upload and download data, without necessarily being safe or secure.

Encryption is widely used to encode data and messages.

It is used in the IT sector, but not as widely as it should be within small businesses.

This article will explain how to better protect your data and documents.

Data can be in two states. It can be ‘at rest’ – on the computer’s hard drive, and ‘in transit’, i.e. being moved to/from another computer or device.

Data can be encrypted for data in both states.

Data at rest can be unencrypted. User access and privileges determine who can see the data.

Even if users can ‘see’ an encrypted file on computer, without the key (password) they will not be able to see the content.

Data in transit – encrypt the data/file with a key (password) before e-mailing it, FTPing it, or uploading it to a secure portal.

While the data is being transmitted across the network/internet, it is effectively in a scrambled state. If a third-party intercepted the data they would need the key to decode the data.

My recommendation is to install WinZip or 7-Zip.

These applications allow you to create archives (collection of files) and add a password to encrypt the archive.

However you share data, think about the risk and impact if it was accidentally sent to the wrong recipient, or intercepted by a third-party.

STEVE BORWELL FOX, Borwell Ltd