There are many cases when the user has an urgent need to protect his personal information from third parties. Of course, one of better ways ensuring the protection of your files is to write them to an external medium and then lock it in a safe deposit box of a Swiss bank.
But, unfortunately, not everyone has such an opportunity and it is not always convenient and expedient. Therefore, other options should be taken into account, for example, protection of personal archives. complex password... Below, step by step and with illustrations, all the necessary actions are described, how to put a password on the WinRar archive.
Preparatory activities
Before proceeding directly to the instructions on how to set a password, the user will first need to complete the following three preliminary steps:
- Firstly, if the WinRar application is not yet available on the PC, then you need to install it from the official resource. Users have the opportunity to immediately purchase it for personal use by paying a small amount, or they can use a demo modification of the utility (this version is valid for more than one month, so the computer owner has ample time to solve his primary tasks).
Installation of the downloaded distribution kit will not cause any difficulties even for beginners, since a special installer will guide you through all the stages of the program installation step by step. The user is only required to agree to the terms or adjust some settings.
- Secondly, it is recommended to come up with a complex access code in advance, which will be set to protect the archive data. Practice shows that often this seemingly simple stage takes a significant amount of time, because it is desirable that the password be at least eight characters long and contain various categories of symbols, letters and numbers.
- Third, write down your own code on paper, since even the worst and shabby notebook is always better than the best human memory.
This small final stage of the preparatory measures cannot be neglected, otherwise, if the password is lost, it is very likely that you will lose along with it important information stored in the archive.
To crack an archive password-protected with a trusted code, you need a special software(it should be noted that it is paid), as well as very powerful computer hardware. And even if all these conditions are met, the “hacker” will need to spend a considerable amount of time searching through all possible options.
Instructions
To set a password for the winrar archive, you need to perform the following sequential steps:
Note: in earlier versions of the application, this button is located in the "Additional" tab.
Content of the article:
If you are faced with the task of a simple, but at the same time, reliable transfer of confidential information to another person, then consider using a password-protected archive. You can also put a password on the archive in order to protect important information on your computer or laptop. It is quite difficult to crack a password even using paid programs. Often, the whole point of the work of programs designed to crack the archive password comes down to a simple search of numbers, letters and words. That's why good password(from eight characters long, with numbers, letters and symbols like ^ or $) is almost impossible to crack.
In order to set our own password for the archive, we will use two archivers: WinRAR and 7-Zip. These programs are very popular and familiar to a wide range of users. Our detailed manual will not leave you any questions about setting a password for the archive and you will be able to protect any confidential information on your machine.
How to put a password on a WinRAR archive
Most computer owners are accustomed to using the WinRAR program to archive any data. This archiver is paid, but the whole point of its being paid is that after 40 days of free use, a message will begin to appear with an offer to buy a license. The functional part of the program does not suffer from this. Using the mouse, click on the file that we want to archive and securely protect with a password, and then select the "Add to archive" item.
After these actions, a window will appear on the screen WinRAR archiver... You need to come up with and enter the name of the future archive (if you do not do this, the default name will be used, which coincides with the name of the archived file). Then click on the item "Set password" (on old version it is in the "Advanced" tab).
Then, in the appropriate fields, enter a strong password twice (there can be no question of any 123 or qwerty, since such passwords are cracked very quickly). If you are afraid to forget the password to the archive, then write it down somewhere in a notepad or a text file.
It is also highly recommended to check the box next to “Encrypt file names”. If this box is not checked, then your password-protected archive can be opened and the name of the folders and files that are in it can be viewed. It will be impossible to download or open them without knowing the password, but the names will be displayed, which is unacceptable in some situations. In order to set a password for the archive, click "Ok".
After that, an archive with a password will appear in the folder where the data that we archived was located. You can easily write it down to a USB flash drive or send it to someone by mail, without fear for the safety of information in it. After creating the archive, the original file can be deleted.
To unzip the data, right-click on the archive and select “Extract to current folder”. Enter the password and click “OK”.
Now you know how to put a password on WinRAR archive... Next, let's take a look at the process of setting a password using 7-Zip.
How to put a password on a 7-Zip archive
Unfortunately, the 7-Zip archiver is less popular among users, although it is completely free and offers an open source source... To set your password, run 7-Zip and specify the files or folders you want to zip. Select the files and click on the "Add" button.
A window will appear on the screen in which you need to specify the name of the archive, enter the password twice and check the box next to the item “Encrypt file names”. To create an archive, click "Ok".
Unzipping is also easy. Open the archive with a double click and enter the password.
Conclusion
As you can see, absolutely any user can set a password for the archive. This is a very handy and useful function for keeping important files and documents safe. It can be used in a variety of situations.
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An archive is a great way to save disk space and also better organize your files. However, some files require additional protection. Therefore, many users are interested in how to put a password on the archive. If you are also interested in this question, then you have come to the right place. In this article, you will learn how to put a password on an archive using such popular archivers as WinRAR and 7zip.
How to set a password for an archive using the WinRAR archiver
To begin with, it should be noted that you can put a password on the archive only at the time of the archive itself. If you already have an archive to which you want to put a password, then you will have to.
And so, in order to put a password on the archive, right-click on the files that you want to add to the password-protected archive. After that, in the menu that opens, select the item "".
After you have selected the "Add to archive" menu item, a window will appear in front of you. Here you can configure all the parameters that are relevant to the created archive.
In order to access the archive we create, you need to go to the "Additional" tab and click on the "Set password" button.
After that, a small window for entering a password will appear in front of you. To avoid an error, the password must be entered twice, in the upper and lower fields.
If you do not want to enter the password twice, then you can check the box next to the item "Display password when entering". In this case, the lower field for entering the password will disappear, and the password itself will be displayed normally, and not in the form of dots as before.
Separately, it is necessary to talk about the function "Encrypt file names". This function hides the names of your files. If you do not enable this function, then your archive can be opened and view the file names. In this case, in order to open the files themselves or completely unzip the archive, you will need to enter a password. If you enable encryption of names, then the archive will be completely protected with a password. In this case, without entering a password, you will not even be able to look at the file names. After entering the password and enabling (or not enabling) the encryption function, close the small window with the password by clicking on the "Ok" button.
After that, the creation of the archive will begin with the password you supplied. The time it takes to create an archive depends on the performance of your computer and the size of the files being backed up. After the end of the archiving, the created archive will appear in the same folder as your source files.
How to put a password on an archive using the 7zip archiver
Another very popular archiver is the 7zip archiver. Unlike WinRAR, this archiver is completely free. In order to put a password on the archive using 7zip, you need to right-click on the files and select the menu item "7zip - Add to archive".
After that, a window with archiving settings will open in front of you. In 7zip, the interface is much simpler and clearer. There are no tabs here, and all functions are housed in one window. In order to put a password on the archive, you need to enter the password in two fields, which are located under the "Encryption" inscription.
After we have entered the desired password, you can change other archiving parameters. If everything suits you, then click on the "Ok" button.
After clicking on the "Ok" button, the process of archiving your files will begin. As with WinRAR, this process can take a while, depending on the amount of data and the performance of your computer.
The Advanced Archive Password Recovery utility is designed to recover passwords for ZIP and RAR archives created using almost any archiving program, as well as self-extracting exe format archives.
You can download a free trial version (8 MB) and get acquainted with the program within 30 days on our website.
System requirements for ARCHPR program:
Supported operating systems: Windows XP, Windows Vista(32/64 bit), Windows 7 (32/64 bit), Windows Server 2003/2008
- About 6MB of free hard disk space
In the tab Options you can ask General settings programs:
1. Interface language(Fig. 1) Russian, English, German;
Fig. 1 Main window Advanced programs Archive Password Recovery
2. Priority(background priority of work or high);
3. Minimize to tray(if this option is enabled, when minimizing the program window, the icon will be located in the system tray; to expand the program, just click on it);
4. Event log archpr4.log(if this option is enabled, all information that is displayed in the status window is written to the log file archpr4.log. This file can be found in the following path C: \ Users \ ......... \ AppData \ Local \ VirtualStore \ Program Files (x86) \ Elcomsoft Password Recovery \ Advanced Archive Password Recovery);
5. Start attack on file select(if this option is enabled, the program analyzes the file immediately upon opening it).
Create a password archive
To test the operation of the program, several archives with different passwords were encrypted by means of WinRAR. different types attacks.
To create a password for an archive, in the main menu of the WinRAR program (another archiver can be used), right-click the folder or file that needs to be archived in context menu select Add files to archive (Fig. 2)
Fig. 2 Adding a file to the archive in WinRAR
In the tab Additionally choose Set password
Fig. 3 Setting a password for an archive in WinRAR
In the opened dialog box Password input enter the password and check the checkbox Encrypt filenames
Fig. 4 Dialog box Enter password for WinRAR program
In the example, the folder “ archive # 1»With password 1234 .
Archive password recovery
Now let's start recovering the password for archive # 1.
Let's open the program Elcomsoft Advanced Archive Password Recovery.
Dropdown Attack type choose Brute force... When this type of attack is selected, all possible combinations of symbols allowed by the user on the tab will be searched. Set fields Character set(Fig. 5). This type of attack is the slowest, but is often most successful on short and simple passwords.
If you know what characters the password consists of, it is necessary in the field Character set check or uncheck the necessary boxes to reduce the time for password recovery.
Fig. 5 Configuring Advanced Archive Password Recovery parameters using a brute-force attack
When all the settings for the password recovery program are done, you must click on the toolbar button Open and specify the path to the encrypted archive. Upon completion of decryption, a window with the recovered password will open (Fig. 6)
Fig. 6 Result window displaying the password of the Advanced Archive Password Recovery program
As we can see in Fig. 6, the password was recovered in 9 seconds. This time can be reduced if information is known not only about the symbols used, but also about the length of the password. This setting can be done on the tab Length(Fig. 7).
Fig. 7 Setting the password length in Advanced Archive Password Recovery
Fig. 8 Result window showing the password of the Advanced Archive Password Recovery program
When specifying additional information about the password (password length), the recovery time was 5 seconds (Fig. 8).
If some part of the password is known, the program provides the ability to use Mask attack... A mask attack is a modified brute-force attack and is used when certain information about the password is available, namely, if some characters in the password are known. You can specify a specific character / characters that is used in the password at a specific position.
In order to use this type of attack, it is necessary in the drop-down list Attack type choose By mask and indicate on the tab Set known password characters in the Mask field (Fig. 9). For example, a password is 4 characters long, starts with “a” and ends with “f”. In this case, you can specify the mask “a ?? f”, in which the question mark characters replace the desired ones. With this setting, guessing unknown password characters will take the same amount of time as it would take to find a two-character password.
Fig. 9 Configuring Advanced Archive Password Recovery parameters using a mask attack
If the password contains the “ ? ”, Then on the tab Advancedness you can change the character that will be used when specifying the mask, as an unknown character.
Users often use whole words as passwords to make them easier to remember, rather than an arbitrary set of characters. To recover such a password, an attack type is suitable. By dictionary... This method allows you to brute force passwords included in dictionaries. Compared to enumerating all possible combinations of characters, enumerating dictionary words takes much less time, but there is a high probability that there is no password in the dictionary.
When configuring this attack (Fig. 10) on the tab Vocabulary you can specify the path to the dictionary that will be used for password recovery.
Fig. 10 Configuring Advanced Archive Password Recovery Options Using Dictionary Attack
Unfortunately, you can only use one dictionary at a time. Elcomsoft Advanced Archive Password Recovery already has three built-in dictionaries (Fig. 11): English (242965 words), German (80472 words) and Russian (75459 words). Additional dictionaries can be used.
Fig. 11 Selecting a dictionary for password recovery
Attack method Plaintext is used if an archive consisting of several files contains at least one decrypted file. In this case, this attack method makes it possible to decrypt all other archive files regardless of the password complexity.
You can know in advance how long it will take to recover your password. To do this, select the desired type of attack (speed test is possible only for brute-force attacks or mask attacks), specify the path to the archive and click on the toolbar button Test... At the end of the test in the window Result you will be able to see the total number of possible passwords, the speed of searching for options, as well as the approximate time to search for a password (Fig. 12).
Fig. 12 Result window of the test mode of the Advanced Archive Password Recovery program
In conclusion, I would like to say that forgetting the password to the archive, you should not panic. Password recovery is not an easy task, but it is quite doable.
Putting a password on a folder using the WinRAR archiving program is one of the most simple ways hide confidential information. Each of us has some information that is not intended to be known to others. It can be a folder, a file, a document, a photograph, or something similar.
When such an object is placed on a computer, it can become known to other people who do not need to know about it. Especially if several people use the computer.
This situation can be at home and at work. Therefore, you need to protect your data from prying attention.
The Windows operating system does not have a built-in password protection feature for a folder or file. Operating room Windows system denies access to the object only to specific users of the computer. This does not always help, because completely different people can log into the system under the name of this user.
You must put a password on a folder or file so that no one but you can open it. One of the ways is to put a password on a folder or file using an archiver. For this I will use the WinRAR archiver. This is one of the easiest and easiest ways.
But first, let's take a look at the easiest way: just hide the folder with operating system Windows.
How to hide a folder in Windows
The easiest way to hide a folder or file in Windows is by using an operating system tool. To do this, right-click on a folder or file. In the "Properties" window that appears, in the "General" tab, in the "Attributes" item, check the checkbox opposite the "Hidden" item, and then click on the "OK" button. After that, the folder will disappear from view.
This method is suitable when you need to quickly hide something, and there is no time to move the file somewhere else. But this is certainly not the most reliable way because it is easy to make this folder or file visible.
How to open a folder in Windows
In order to make a hidden folder or file visible again, in Windows 7 you need to go to the "Start" menu => "Control Panel" => "Appearance and Personalization" => "Folder Options" => "Show hidden files and folders" ...
In the "Folder Options" window, in the "View" tab, uncheck the box next to the "Show hidden files, folders and drives ", and then click on the" OK "button.
Now, in the place where the hidden folder used to be, you will see it again. This folder will have a translucent look.
To make the folder open again, right-click on the folder and select Properties from the context menu.
In the "Properties" window, in the "General" tab, in the "Attributes" item, uncheck the checkbox opposite the "Hidden" item. The folder is shared again.
After all these actions, go to the "Start" menu => "Control Panel" => "Appearance and Personalization" => "Folder Options" => "Show Hidden Files and Folders" => "Folder Options" => "View".
Here, check the box next to the item "Do not show hidden files, folders and drives", and then click on the "OK" button.
There is another way to hide a folder, but it is more difficult to use, so I will not cover it in this article.
How to put a password on a folder in WinRAR
When using the archiver, a folder or file will turn into an archive and it will not be possible to open it without knowing the password. In this example, I am using the WinRAR archiver.
There is a folder on the Desktop where you need to put a password. I named this folder "The Secret Folder". Right click on the folder.
In the context menu, select the "Add to archive ..." item.
In this window, click on the "Set password ..." button.
The "Enter password" window opens.
Enter your password in the appropriate field and then confirm the password for verification. In this example, I have used a simple password. If you have very important information, then the password should be complex.
There are special programs for guessing and decrypting passwords. To a simple password, it will be easy for such a program to guess the password. To create a strong password, it is best to use special program- password manager. With the help of such a program, you can create a strong password, the program will remember it, and when needed, you can use it to enter your password again.
If you come up with a password yourself, then use a password that you will not forget (Russian words can be entered in the English keyboard layout). Remember the password, because if you forget it, you will not be able to unpack the archive and open the file.
After that, check the box next to the "Encrypt file names" item, and then click on the "OK" button.
Archiving starts, and after it completes, an encrypted archive will be created. The archive has the same name as the original folder. After that you can delete or move the original folder somewhere.
To open the created encrypted archive, right-click on the archive, and in the context menu, click on the "Open" item.
Enter the password in the appropriate field, and then click on the "OK" button.
The WinRAR archiver window appears, in this window, click on the "Extract ..." button.
In the "Extraction path and parameters" window, click the "OK" button.
After that, the encrypted archive will be unpacked to the Desktop, and the folder on which the password was previously set will again appear on it.
Conclusion
Using the WinRAR archiver, you can easily put a password on a folder or file. You can quickly close access to a file or folder by archiving the file or folder in WinRAR and then setting a password for the created archive.
How to put a password on a folder using WinRAR