Since the NSA leaks have come out openly in the public, the security experts have been advising everyone to encrypt their documents and use secure connections to prevent any eavesdropping by government or private agencies on your private life. While there are tons of free encryption tools available like AXCrypt, they are nothing like using the Encryption Wizard tool designed by the US department of defense themselves. The Encryption Wizard is a one-stop cross platform tool for all your encryption requirements. It can encrypt files, store your passwords, delete files securely and generate strong passwords – all under the same roof.
For some reason, the universities and many government organizations prefer Java over any other programming language. Encryption Wizard is no exception – it is also designed using Java, and as such you must have Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed for it to work. After download the Encryption Wizard from the website of department of defense, United States, you can extract the JAR file and double-click on it to launch the program. But since it is written in Java, it can run on any operating system – Windows, Linux, or Mac.
The encryption and decryption is pretty easy. To encrypt files or folders, you can drag-n-drop them on to the Encryption Wizard window. Then click on the Encrypt button. It will give you options to enter passphrase, certificate file, certificate from smart card etc. The encrypted files shall be renamed to .WZD extension.
Decrypting files is similar – only this time, you drag-n-drop encrypted WZD files on the Encryption Wizard window, click on the Decrypt button, enter the password or certificates and proceed.
If you want then you can integrate Encryption Wizard into Windows system very easily. To do so, you can select Tools → Platform Support → Install from the menubar.
During the encryption of the files, when it asks for a passphrase, you can use the Encryption Wizard password generator tool to create strong passwords. In this tool, you can choose the number of upper case / lower case letters, numerals, special characters and generate strong passwords of any length.
Encryption Wizard also have a Keychain tool which works as a password storage tool. You can create a keychain and add various accounts (website account, network account or computer account), groups, persons etc., to the keychain. Then you can add usernames or passwords to these accounts. These credentials are stored fully encrypted using the AES cipher and you can view them only after entering your passphrase or certificate.
Conclusion: The Encryption Wizard tool from the Department of Defense of United States is a very powerful cross-platform encryption suite that comes with file/folder encryption, a strong password generator, secure file deletion capabilities, and a password management tool.
You can download Encryption Wizard from http://www.spi.dod.mil/ewizard.htm.