If you have a computer and are connected to the Internet then your computer is in danger of having files stolen. While most of the files you have may be innocuous, if there is any personal information in them such as birthdays, social insurance numbers or financial data then you will want to make sure this information is protect from prying eyes. The easiest way to do this is to password protect your documents.

Adding a password to your files is something that is simple and easy to do, once you know where to look. For the best protection you will want a password that is at least 12 characters long and contains a combination of letter, numbers and symbols. This will ensure that a hacker cannot easily gain access to your files.

Now that we have covered how to keep your documents safe, what happens if you lose or forget the passwords? Obviously you dont want to use the same password on every file ” if someone ever guessed the password then all of your files would be at risk. At the same time using a different password every time will make it difficult to remember. Odds are at some point in time you are going to lose a password and need to access your files.

Luckily there are programs out there which are designed to help you retrieve your files should you forget the password. These programs, referred to as password recovery software, work in a few different ways to figure out what password you used.

Initially the program will try to open your document using a combination of letters and number to see if it can guess the right password. This may work to gain entry into your files, but if you used a long or complicated password that includes a variety of characters and symbols it may not succeed.

Next the software will try different combinations of letters, numbers and symbols to get into the file. If your password was short and simple then it should have no problem getting in, but if you use long, complex passwords the software will need some time, and there is no guarantee that it will be able to find the right combination.

Finally the password recovery software can simply disable the password protection on the file. This is where you want to be careful, as once the password protection is removed then your files are again in danger. Ensure you quickly protect them again once you have got in, and remember the password this time!

Once you have recovered your files, you may want to consider an alternate method keeping track of your passwords so you dont forget them. If you have a mobile or PDA and you can password protect it, then it may be a good place to keep keys to your important files. That way your passwords are at hand, but not linked to your computer.

When you are password protecting your documents, think about saving your password in a secure document that uses 1 password to open but includes all your passwords. This way is very simple to remember and not very complicated to retrieve if you do. This way there is never a moment where you cant open a document or file.