Vista relies primarily on AES (Advanced Encryption System), using it as the encryption algorithm both EFS (Encrypted File System) and BitLocker drive encryption.

Laptops, external drives, and USB sticks are especially vulnerable to data theft, but with Windows and a few tools, you can protect them using encryption.

How to Encrypt Files on Windows using Encrypting File System (EFS) EFS works by letting you apply encryption to already-existing files or folders in your file system.

How to Encrypt any File, Folder, or Drive on Your System Trust us, it’s safer this way. Photograph: Peter Dazeley/Getty Images ...

Logged in, and there's some notification asking me to backup the key because it is encrypting my file system. I didn't ask it to do that, and I wasn't even logged in as admin before the reboot.

The BitLocker encryption built into higher-end versions of Windows Vista goes a long way toward locking out intruders at the boot-drive level, but it's neither 100% hassle-free nor 100% secure.

How to Encrypt and Decrypt a File. Encrypting files on your computer helps to secure your data from unauthorized access. Microsoft Windows features the native ability to encrypt files and folders ...

A new ransomware strain called ShrinkLocker creates a new boot partition to encrypt corporate systems using Windows BitLocker.

That same year, the Russian agricultural business Miratorg was attacked by ransomware that used BitLocker to encrypt files residing in the system storage of infected devices.

You can decrypt EFS encrypted Files & Folders on your Windows computer system using Advanced File Attributes or using the cipher command in Command Prompt. Learn how to do it.