LockBox Computing: 25 Free Tools To Encrypt Literally Everything

It’s not breaking news that hackers can easily figure out how to gain access to unsecured information on your system–emails, chat sessions, phone calls, and files are all vulnerable. What many people don’t know is that there are a number of free tools available that make it easy to fight back. Protect your valuable information with these encryption tools.

Instant Messaging:

1. IMsecure: Keep your IM conversations private with IMsecure’s message encryption.

Passwords:

2. Password Encryption: Save your passwords in this encrypted file. With this tool, you’ll only need to remember one password to get into the software.
3. RoboForm: Encrypt your passwords with a master password and defeat keyloggers by avoiding having to type passwords into a keyboard. You can even create profiles for different members of a household.

VoIP:

4. Zfone: Paul Zimmerman’s Zfone allows you to make encrypted phone calls online. It’s available as a plugin for existing VoIP clients and can be integrated by developers in VoIP applications.

Remote Access:

5. OpenVPN: Get secure VPN, WiFi, remote access and more with this solution. You’ll need to use the OpenSSL cryptographic library with OpenVPN.

Email:

6. Private Post Desktop: This email encryption software makes it easy to send secure email. Your recipient will need a free reader to open emails.
7. Stunnel: This universal SSL wrapper encrypts POP, IMAP, LDAP, and other emails without changing the daemon’s code. You’ll need to use OpenSSL with this tool.
8. Packman: With Packman, you can encrypt email and attachments as well as files on private servers.
9. Freenigma: To encrypt web-based email, use Freenigma. It’s a free Firefox plugin, and it supports systems like Gmail, Yahoo! and Hotmail.

Chat:

10. TrilogyEC: Encrypt chat, IM and file transfers with TrilogyEC. This tool can be used to chat with up to 5 people at a time.

Communications:

11. OpenSSL: This toolkit implements the secure sockets layer and transport layer security as well as a cryptography library.
12. OpenSSH: Eliminate the risk of eavesdropping, connection hijacking and password transmission with this tool.
13. GnuPG: The GNU Privacy Guard secures data and communications with advanced encryption. You can also use it to create digital signatures.
14. Tor: Tor anonymizes your Internet communications, including web browsing, web publishing, IM, chat, SSH and more.

Files:

15. FileVault: Create self extracting and self decrypting files. The recipient doesn’t need any software to open these files, just a password.
16. TrueCrypt: Use TrueCrypt to create a virtual encrypted disk that provides numerous levels of protection. This software is supported in Windows Vista, XP, 2000, and Linux.
17. AxCrypt: With AxCrypt, you can encrypt, compress, decrypt, wipe, view, and edit files quickly and easily. This software works with most Windows versions.
18. Kruptos: Use Kruptos to encrypt files on your PC or a portable storage device. With this tool, you can also create files that self-decrypt.

Hard Drive:

19. CryptoExpert: Secure virtual hard drives on your machine with this software. You can password protect the drives and encrypt any files you put in them.

Text:

20. fSekrit: fSekrit encrypts text into its own file, which can then be run off of a USB drive or other storage. This ensures that you’ll never have to store this data un-encrypted on your hard disk.
21. Silver.Zero: With Silver.Zero, you can encrypt text in three different ways.
22. PlainText Crypto: Turn text files into a sequence of digits with PlainText Crypto. This can also be used for emails.

Data:

23. Data Scrambler: DataScrambler turns data into a scrambled bitmap file with the MD5 algorithm. When using this program, you’ll need to set your own password and share it with recipients.
24. PixelCryptor: Use this encryption tool to encrypt and decrypt data through an image.

Various:

25. Xidie Security Suite: This security suite combines steganography, stretch image, noise, and more.

While there are certainly some superior products on the market that aren’t free, for the needs of the average person the 25 tools highlighted in this article will provide more than enough encryption and protection to ensure the secure transmission of information.