Encrypting .exe files

[Fritz Martens]

I’m just trying AxCrypt out to see if it will work for me. Encrypting individual tax client files works fine and they can’t be opened. However, my tax software can still run, even after encrypting the .exe file, and it has generated/indexed key information from individual files, including Social INsurance NUmbers that can still be seen in the “Client Manager”. Is there any way I can disable the tax program software to prevent any sensitive information from being seen in the event I lose my laptop?

[SvanteSpectator]

Hello Fritz,

This is not really something that we can support you with, except to note that if you’ve encrypted the .exe file for the tax program and it still can run, you’ve not encrypted the .exe file for the tax program ;-). You’ve encrypted some other .exe .

Finally, from a security point of view, encrypting a .exe of a published software will have little real security, since the original .exe is easily obtainable and the actual information is also easily extracted even without it from the files in question.

What you should to in this case is encrypt all *data* files.

[Fritz]

You are right. I thought the .exe file was encrypted but it was not. Attached is a screen shot I get when I try to encrypt the program file. And I agree that locking the program is only a short-term fix to slow down access to other files if they are not also encrypted. And I would like to be able to do that easily – is there a global “encrypt all ‘data’ files”?

[SvanteSpectator]

Hello Fritz,

The likely reason for the error message is that either the .exe is write-protected, or it requires administrator permissions to write which is likely since it’s residing the Program Files folder.

No there is no global “Encrypt all data” command, but you can select many files, or a folder, and encrypt many files in one go.

Encrypting data files like those that are “fixed’ to a given program like your tax software is usually troublesome. You need to be careful, since if you start the software without having decrypted the files first, it will get confused and may do unexpected things such as creating new empty files etc.

[Author]

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