Basic Data Protection in Windows (Page 1 of 4 )
In the digital age, information is money. Corporations store terabytes of private data and spend billions a year to protect it. Home and small business owners are no different. Credit card numbers, bank account information, monthly bills, and more are just the beginning. Let’s take a look at some ways Microsoft Windows allows you to keep your data away from prying eyes.
For all intents and purposes, we’ll be taking a look at three different types of data protection. They can be used independently or in conjunction to reach the desired level of protection.
The most basic of all data protection methods uses a file or folder’s attributes flags to hide the file from display. This does not provide a very good level of protection. Common system settings can be used to reveal these files. Due to the inherent inefficiencies in this method, I feel it warrants nothing more than a mention.
The next layer of protection occurs at the file system level. The NTFS file system that ships with Windows 2000 and newer provides protection that was not available in earlier FAT file systems.
This method of protection makes use of Access Control Lists (ACLs) that are attached to files or folders to determine who is allowed access. Since it is written directly to the disk, this method provides security even when a drive is removed from a machine.
There are two types of ACL protection. Traditional ACLs list individual users who have access. More recent versions use a role-based access control that serves permissions to groups instead. Windows is capable of using both.
Each accessible object, either a file or a folder, has an identifier assigned to its ACL that grants a combination of Read, Write, or Execute permissions to the assigned users or groups. In other words, not only can you restrict access completely, but you also have the ability to limit what actions can be performed on a specific file or folder. The identifier is then written as an attribute for the file or folder.
Next: Implementing ACLs >>
More Windows Security Articles
More By Nilpo
