The method which i am going to discuss here is for people who wants to hide data on their system without any special tools or softwares so that no one can easily detect it and even if they can they may not be able to decode it.
The method is pretty simple and working great. This method i adopted in one of the software company during an audit and they were unable to trace anything.
Steps:
- Put all the data in a folder
- Compress it using any tool like winzip or winrar
- make it password protected
- change the extension name to .doc or .xls or docx or xlsx [depending upon your ms office version]
- open a new word document
- embed the data whose extension you changed in step 4 using the below step
- Goto insert > object >click on create from file tab > check the box “display as icon” and select the file created on step 4
- save that document
- again compress it
- make it password protected
- change its extension to .pst
- goto the folder where your outlook express files exist e.g. C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
- paste the file created in step 10 here
Your data is now secure. No one can easily trace it and even if they can they will not be able to open it. You may tweak this renaming method according to your needs and intelligence. Your data is now absolutely safe. Feel free to comment your views on this.