Rapidly Send Encrypted Information via Email

Never send sensitive information through email, or text. This includes passwords, social security numbers, bank account information, maybe even sensitive medical information, etc.

Sometimes you can't chat in person or over the phone to tell someone the information they need, or maybe you just need to send it to yourself for another location. Take a moment to quickly encrypt that data before sending it.

All you really need to encrypt information is a common program called 7-zip. Download and install it from 7-zip.org.

Encrypt your data:

• Create a new text document. A Notepad or Wordpad .txt file is the fastest, but feel free to use Word, Excel, a nice looking template saved as PDF, or anything else
• Write your sensitive data, save the file, and close the document

• Right click on the file, navigate to the 7-zip sub-menu and choose Add to archive

• Enter a password, choose your desired settings, and also check Encrypt file names just for an extra level of security. Click OK to continue

A zipped file with a .7z extension will be created. If a user attempts to open it, they will be prompted for a password. Without the password, file names nor the enclosed content will be able to be viewed, so any enclosed data is safer to send through e-mail, etc.