Network Security Hacks

Encrypt Your Temp Folder

Keep prying eyes out of your temporary files.

Many Windows applications will create intermediary files while they do their work. They typically store these files in a temporary folder within the current user’s settings directory. Most often these files are created world-readable and aren’t always cleaned up when the program exits. How would you like it if your word processor left a copy of the last document you were working on for anyone to come across and read? Not a pretty thought, is it?

One way to guard against this situation is to encrypt your temporary files folder. To do this, open an Explorer window and go to the C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings folder. In this folder you should see another folder called Temp. This is the folder that holds the temporary files. Right-click the folder and bring up its Properties dialog. Make sure the General tab is selected, and click the button labeled Advanced. This will bring up an Advanced Attributes dialog, as seen in Figure 2-6. Here you can choose to encrypt the folder.

Figure 2-6. The Temp folder’s Advanced Attributes dialog

Check the “Encrypt contents to secure data” box and click the OK button. When you have done that, click the Apply button in the Properties dialog. Another dialog (as seen in Figure 2-7) will open asking you whether you would like the encryption to apply recursively.

Figure 2-7. Confirm ...