2. Task 5 – Document and Computer Security
Introduction – In this PowerPoint I will talk about how to
protect documents from getting hacked or damaged and
how to secure your computer.
3. Back up
Back up is a process of copying data so that in case you lose your files you
can use your back up to restore it. The purpose of back up is that if you
accidentally delete an important data, or if your files has been corrupted
you can still get it back. Backing up files is important as 67% of people using
the internet suffer data loss.
There are many different ways you can back up your data by using magnetic
data, hard disk, optical storage (discs), floppy disk, solid state storage (USB
flash drives), and remote backup service (backing up via internet).
The importance of backing up is not only restoring files that are lost, it can
also be an evidence that a certain documents belongs to you.
4. Data Compression
Data compression is a technique for eliminating coarse-grained redundant data,
typically to improve storage utilization. Compression is useful because it helps
reduce the consumption of expensive resources, such as hard disk space or
transmission bandwidth.
The downside of data compression is that you have to decompress the
compressed data to use and can take time with different applications. E.g. A
compressed video would need an expensive hardware for the video to be
decompressed fast enough to be viewed as it is being decompressed.
Lossy image compression is used in digital cameras, to increase storage
capacities with minimal degradation of picture quality. Similarly, DVDs use the
lossy MPEG-2 Video codec for video compression.
The Lempel-Ziv (LZ) compression methods are among the most popular
algorithms for lossless storage. DEFLATE is a variation on LZ which is optimized
for decompression speed and compression ratio, therefore compression can be
slow. DEFLATE is used in PKZIP, gzip and PNG. LZW (Lempel-Ziv-Welch) is used in
GIF images. Also noteworthy are the LZR methods, which serve as the basis of
the Zip method.
5. Encryption
Encryption is the process of transforming information using an algorithm
called cipher, to make it unreadable to anyone except those possessing
special knowledge, which is known as a key. The result of the process is
encrypted information.
In many contexts, the word encryption also refers to the reverse process,
decryption. Encryption software can also perform decryption to make the
encrypted information readable again (i.e. to make it unencrypted).
The computer security reported that 71% of companies surveyed utilized
encryption for some of their data in transit, and 53% utilized encryption for
some of their data in storage.
Encryption can be used to protect data "at rest", such as files on computers
and storage devices (e.g. USB flash drives). As there are numerous of reports
that confidential files are being lost or stolen, encryption can help protect
files so that they cannot be stolen.
