Many people think of encryption as a modern concept, but it is as old as human communication. The first documented use is in non-standard hieroglyphics found on Egyptian artifacts dating to 1900 BCE. C., clearly an attempt to prevent everyone from reading its meaning. Ancient scholars understood surrogate digits and used them to send messages that only the intended recipient could read. However, the turning point in cryptology came with the advances in mathematics available in the XNUMXth century, leading to the military ciphers used during World War I and mechanical encryption machines, such as the Enigma, widely used during World War II. World War. The complexity of these devices and the importance of using cryptanalysis to crack these codes led to the first programmable computers. Today we take a look at a powerful encryption tool designed to protect files inside an impenetrable math bubble that can only be accessed by someone with the correct password. Steganos Safe offers this feature and more for an annual subscription. Let's see if that justifies this departure.
Award
Steganos Safe 22 is the latest version and costs €34,99 (€34,84) directly from Steganos. Downloadable software is licensed for use on up to 5 PCs for one year. Unfortunately, there are no longer term licenses or discounts for bulk purchases at the point of purchase. What is being offered is a fully functional 30-day trial, which allows a potential customer to fully experience the software. Any encrypted vault created with the software can still be read after the trial or license is complete. They simply cannot be added or changed without a current license.
Features
Minimum requirements Microsoft Windows 10 or 8At least 1 GB of RAM (32 and 64 bit)
100 MB of hard disk space
An internet connection Steganos Safe version 22 was released on September 10, 2020 and is the latest incarnation of a product that saw the light of day over twenty years ago. Although it's only been a few months into this release, Steganos has already released seven updates to the original 22.0.0, and the version we're using is 22.3.0 (revision 12860). These changes included bug fixes, interface optimizations, and some additional enhancements. Steganos Safe's functionality is basic but highly focused on providing what customers need most to protect documents from prying eyes. It has two components, the secure create and maintain functionality and a file shredder to irretrievably shred documents. Shredder was previously a stand-alone software technology, but is now integrated with version 22. However, the core functionality is the encryption engine, and it can be used in many subtle ways to protect files and folders on the installation computer, entire partitions, network attached folders, external hard drives, USB drives and even Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, MagentaCLOUD. and Google Drive cloud storage. The scope of these possibilities goes a bit to override the limitation that this software only works on Windows machines. However, it would be better to see a mobile version for iOS and Android eventually. Creating a safe, especially one that resides on the computer, is remarkably simple, and along with the password mechanism that we'll discuss later, the safe file is hidden on the system to prevent it from being an easy target for anyone searching the system. . . Hiding the file is something we've seen done on other systems, but the caveat with this stealthy approach is that backup applications may not include the invisible file when protecting the drive's contents. The solution Steganos devised for small vaults under 3 GB was to make the vault appear as a standard document, such as a video or audio file. The system even allows you to choose an existing MP3, M4A, AVI, WMV or EXE file and embed the safe into it. This file will continue to work as it should on the system, playing videos or music, even if it has been changed. We like this thinking because the container can be backed up and it doesn't scream "safe data here" to anyone who has invaded the system.
Security
Steganos takes security very seriously, as some of the tricks used in Steganos Safe are more sophisticated than those of competing solutions. As with any system that uses passwords, the quality of those passwords is critical to securing or potentially undermining this. That being said, it is possible to set passwords that are very insecure, although the software will tell you that they are bad and not try to convince you that they are good when they are not. The maximum password length is 20 characters and we recommend that you use special characters in upper case, at the bottom and for maximum impact. The system will automatically generate passwords or create them from image selections if you want the least predictable passwords. Once a password is generated, it is copied to the clipboard to be placed in a password vault if you are using one. For manually entered passwords, a virtual keyboard is provided, preventing the possibility of disclosure to any keylogging software installed on the system.
