If you are concerned about your privacy, and unauthorized access to your personal data, it is normal that you wonder to what extent the data on your mobile phone or laptop is truly encrypted. Even though complicated math is involved in the process, the encryption is not difficult to understand .
In short, we could define it as a method to lock our data and files using a secret code , in the same way that, for example, a couple of spies could speak in code in order to hide what they are really saying. So if someone else overhears that conversation, it would sound like gibberish; that is to say, it would be a “dark language due to the impropriety of the phrase or the confusion of ideas”, according to the description made by the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy. Or, explained in another way, the encrypted files would not be accessible, since they would not be visible.
What is and what does encrypted data consist of?
In the computer world, according to Kaspersky, encryption consists of converting data from a readable format to an encrypted format , which could only be read or processed once it has been decrypted. It is basically the basic component of data security, and it becomes one of the simplest ways to ensure that the information on a certain computer system cannot be read or stolen by any other user, especially those who wish to use it with nefarious means.
To understand these encrypted data, it is necessary to have the code key, which in our mobile phone is usually the PIN number. Once we have passed the lock screen, both the files and the different applications will stop being gibberish. This is why being able to unlock an encrypted phone is so important to understanding the data on it . And it applies to the various data that we have stored on our devices.
A good example is found in applications with end-to-end encryption , which could not be eavesdropped, so that only the sender and intended recipient can see the actual message.
And, according to experts, often the so-called number of “bits” is listed next to the type of encryption being used, which will tell us how many possible combinations there are to arrive at the unlock code. For example, something encrypted or locked with 256-bit encryption would take billions of years to decrypt using only brute force.
Encrypting our data
For different purposes, different types of encryption algorithms have been developed, with different trade-offs between complexity and speed. Although it is true that, in most cases, we will not have to worry about what type of encryption the device that, for example, we have in our hands is using.
In the case of an iPhone, it uses the 256-bit AES standard , the same one used by the United States military, which has the advantage of being very fast to apply and impossible to decipher when executing the various combinations of unlock codes.
Thus, while iOS has encrypted data for years, now encryption is also activated by default in macOS. The same is true for almost all new Android devices, as they are equally encrypted by default, as long as they run Android 6.0 Marshmallow or later.
In case our Android device is not encrypted, we can do it as long as possible with the current version of the operating system. If it is viable, we will find this option within Security , in Settings.
And in Windows? Some Windows 10 computers come with Device Encryption enabled, as long as we configure it and sign in with a Microsoft account. To verify if this option is also available to us, we must access Settings, click on System and then click on About . If possible, we will find a Device Encryption section at the bottom.
