McAfee UTILITIES 4.0, User Manual

Page: 47 / 60

User’s Guide 47
Secure and Manage
• PGPtray. PGPtray is a convenient means for launching the various PGP
utilities. Located in the System Tray, PGPtray enables you to open the
PGPkeys window, the Preferences dialog, or PGPtools. In addition, if you
need to encrypt or decrypt files, you can do so directly from the Windows
clipboard by right clicking on the desktop and choosing the appropriate
PGP menu option.
• PGPtools. If you are using an email application that is not supported by the
plug-ins, you can easily encrypt the text of the message using PGPtools.
PGPtools enables you to encrypt and sign files on the hard disk of your
computer for secure storage, and to securely wipe files from your hard disk
so that sensitive data can’t be retrieved with disk recovery software.
• PGPdisk. PGPdisk enables you to create secure volumes of information,
such as floppy disks or areas of your hard drive.
NOTE: For information on PGP and how to use its features, refer to the
online Help or the PGP portable document format (PDF) file included in
the McAfee Utilities CD.
McAfee Shredder
When you save a file in Windows, it is stored in multiple pieces (in clusters
made up of multiple sectors) on the disk. Windows also saves a roadmap, or
index, that points to these clusters in two copies of the FAT (File Allocation
Table). The FAT contains the directions to all the pieces of your files, so that
applications can find them again later.
When you delete a file, all the information stored in that file is not actually
erased from your disk. Instead, Windows simply frees the clusters where the
file was stored, making those locations available in the FAT. Thereafter,
applications can write new information to those clusters. This means that all
or part of your files can be reconstructed even after you delete them. Undelete
programs can reconstruct a deleted file very easily, especially immediately
after you delete the file and before you save any new information that might
be written over the deleted file’s contents.
For privacy and security reasons, you may want to be positive that the
information stored in files you delete is permanently erased from your
computer. McAfee Shredder does this for you by “security wiping” deleted
files so they cannot be restored or rebuilt using undelete utilities. Unlike other
file security erase programs, McAfee Shredder erases even the filename and
the compressed data on DriveSpace drives. Note that it is not possible to shred
network files, or files compressed with compression other than DriveSpace in
an absolutely secure manner.