From the course: CompTIA Security+ (SY0-601) Cert Prep: 7 Endpoint Security Design and Implementation

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Data encryption

Data encryption

- [Instructor] Encryption is one of the most common controls used to protect sensitive information. When you encrypt a file or other form of data, you take it's plain text form and use a mathematical algorithm to transform it using an encryption key into a version that's unreadable to someone who doesn't have the corresponding decryption key. This makes it possible to take sensitive information, encrypt it, and store it in insecure locations or transmit it over insecure networks. If the encryption is strong, the information will remain safe. We normally encrypt information using specialized software. For example, the AES Crypt software package available for Windows, Mac and Linux systems implements the US government's Advanced Encryption Standard to encrypt files. Let's take a look at how we can encrypt a file using AES Crypt on a Linux system. I'm here in my home directory, and you can see that I have a file called…

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