Main Features

BestCrypt Data Shelter software provides the following functionality:

1. The software allows the user to select any number of folders for protecting their contents from unwanted programs and users.

2. The software can allow all the programs (users) access the protected folder except selected programs or users. The protection can also work in the other direction: the software prevents all the programs (users) from accessing the folder, except the list of selected programs (users) that are allowed to access the folder.

3. The list of rules for allowing or denying access to a folder is formed into a so-called Protection Policy. BestCrypt Data Shelter allows creating any number of policies. Any policy can be applied to any number of protected folders.

4. BestCrypt Data Shelter is able to monitor communication between processes and provide protection of folders based on the information. The software also detects abnormal activity of processes in the protected folders and can react quickly up to terminating such a process.

5. The software protects folders from ransomware. A ransomware program is a malicious program (malware) that usually encrypts information and then demands a "ransom" for decrypting it. It can infiltrate a computer as a Trojan and then modify (usually encrypts) files or entire volumes on a disk. BestCrypt Data Shelter protects against both types of ransomware at the file level and at the disk volume level (read more in the Protection against ransomware article).

6. BestCrypt Data Shelter has a residential module that optionally can display an icon in the System Tray for faster running main commands of the software. The module also displays dialog windows to inform the user about important events related to the software activity. For example, if the software detects the abnormal activity in the protected folder of some process. In this case, BestCrypt Data Shelter can instantly terminate the process and inform the user about that.

7. BestCrypt Data Shelter remembers the history of accessing the protected folder and the history of communication between all the processes in the system, including parent-child relations or the cases when one process opens another process. The program remembers this history when the computer is turned off or the user reboots it. The user can create a policy for a protected folder based on the history.

8. The user can create a policy for the protected folder in several ways:

request BestCrypt Data Shelter list all types of the files in the folder and allow only registered programs to access the files
request BestCrypt Data Shelter to create the protection policy based on the history of accessing the folder by the programs
manually selecting programs and users

The user can always edit the policy created automatically by the software.

9. As mentioned above, the program remembers the history of running processes. The history includes the hash (or secure checksum) of the executable files. If such a file is modified, in some cases it may mean that it is infected. When BestCrypt Data Shelter detects a modification of some executable file and the corresponding program accesses a protected folder, the program notifies the user and temporarily denies access to the folder for the program. Read more about this type of protection in the Quarantine programs article.

10. BestCrypt Data Shelter receives information about encrypted disk volumes from another Jetico program: BestCrypt Volume Encryption. Therefore, the user is always informed whether the protected folder is located on an encrypted volume or not. The user can always encrypt the underlying disk volume by the direct call of the corresponding BestCrypt Volume Encryption command simply by clicking the Encrypt button.

11. The program allows the user to create an encrypted and compressed backup archive of the protected folder with Jetico BCArchive software that is embedded into BestCrypt Data Shelter. The user can ask the program to automatically and regularly synchronize the contents of the protected folder with the encrypted archive. Besides, the user can create a self-extracted executable with encrypted contents of the folder and extract the folder on any other computer without BestCrypt Data Shelter installation.

12. The software creates a log file to document the activity of the processes in the protected folders. Lines in the log file for the normal and critical activity are shown in different colors in the LogView program that is distributed as a part of the BestCrypt Data Shelter program. The user can also modify the existing policy using the information from the log file about the process activity in the folder.