There’s ranges of encryption, but having encryption present is extremely important.
For instance, there was a person from an insurance company who went to a football game in Detroit and when he went to the restroom, he sat his phone down. He didn’t have it locked, and he didn’t have any encryption on it. Whenever he left the restroom, he forgot his phone and they actually ended up having a large data breach because whoever had the phone was able to access all his emails and any files that he had access to.
So device encryption is so important. Something as innocuous as “Oh, I left my phone in the restroom” could cause something huge. So how do you go about implementing that type of encryption?
Encrypting Apple Devices
If you have a Mac, encryption actually comes built in. So all you have to do, if you don’t already have it turned on, is turn on Filevault. You’ll go to your security and privacy settings, go to Filevault, and then you’ll click turn on Filevault. When you turn on Filevault, you’ll be able to see your computer encrypting your data – it’ll just be a little progress bar.
Every time you then turn on your computer, you’ll have to put in your password twice, once for unlocking the computer and then once for unlocking the encryption. You’ll actually be able to again, see a little progress bar and it’ll say decrypting data. So you’ll see that it sits at rest in an encrypted state. If somebody were to steal your Mac, your data would be encrypted.
Now with your iPhone, as long as you have iOS version 8.0 and up, and about 95% of devices do have iOS 8.0 and up, the iPhone actually encrypts as soon as you add a passcode or password. The way to check that you have your passcode or password turned on, number one, is whenever you open your phone, you have to be able to put in a password. And number two, if you go to your settings, and then click on face ID and passcode and you scroll all the way down to the bottom, you’ll see this little sentence that says data protection is enabled. As long as data protection is enabled, that means that your iPhone is sitting encrypted.
Encrypting Microsoft Devices
Now, let’s say you have a Microsoft device. If you have a Microsoft device with Windows Pro on it, BitLocker is the encryption software that they use. If you have a Windows machine, that is the pro version, all you have to do is go to the Control Panel, look up BitLocker, and then you’ll just turn on BitLocker. And again, a progress bar will show and you’ll see that the device will now have the data sitting encrypted.
Now, if you have Windows Home and not Windows Pro, you are able to upgrade. The upgrade costs anywhere between $100 to $120, depending upon the sales that they have going on at the time. Once you go from home to pro, then BitLocker will become available, and you can turn BitLocker on and encrypt your Microsoft device.
Encrypting Android Devices
Finally, if you have Android devices, and you have Android 4.4 or lower under security, what you’ll need to do is add a pin and then enable encryption. If you have an Android device, that is the OS 5.0 or greater, most devices are actually encrypted by default with a password. And all you have to do is again, check your security menu to see that option. Go to your security menu and then scroll down and it will say encryption is on. So as long as you see “encryption on” your Android device is protected.
Bonus Tip – Set Phone Notifications So They Don’t Appear On Your Lock Screen
Now, as kind of a bonus tip, one thing that can happen that you’ll show data that it’s inadvertent is if your phone is locked and your phone notifications show. So it’s possible that you could have your phone out or on a table or with another client and you could actually have a notification show on your lock screen.
It might say you have an email from someone, it might show you the first line depending, it can show you all the text from an actual text. Depending upon your situation, you don’t typically want other people to be able to see your notifications. So we recommend turning those off. That way your notifications won’t be visible unless a password is entered.
Learn how to do this on an Apple device
Learn how to do this on an Android device
Once you set this up, if your phone is off or in lock mode, you will not get any type of notifications that show anything without your password being entered.
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