PROTECT YOUR DATA.

File encryption works using cryptography to scramble the contents of files so they're unreadable without the correct authentication - usually a password that is used to unlock an encryption key, which in turn decrypts the file so it's readable. It's also possible to encrypt Office documents - but encryption is only effective in Word 2007 or later when first AES 128-bit encryption and more recently (from Office 2016) AES 256-bit encryption is employed. If you want stronger encryption for individual files or folders, Gpg4win (www.gpg4win.org) works in a similar fashion to AES Crypt, with the added bonus of allowing you to encrypt files using public keys protected by passphrases for additional security. When you delete a file, it's not physically removed from your PC; instead, the first few bytes of the file are overwritten with a tag that tells Windows that the file is deleted and the space it currently resides in is available when writing other files to disk. [Extracted from the article]