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.

Easily encrypted page file Users who cannot use BitLocker but still want to prevent the memory swap page file from being analyzed in an offline sector editing attack no longer need to erase the ...

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 ...

The lab-developed ransomware strain relies on the Encrypting File System (EFS) component in Microsoft's operating system and can run undetected by some antivirus software.

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.

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.