Steganos Safe 2007 Review

Quick Summary

Steganos Safe 2007 works very well for me, and it seems to be very reliable.  It's easier to use than other similar products I have tried, and it seems to handle being backed up/restored correctly (this was a problem with TrueCrypt).  It makes encrypting my sensitive data very convenient, and so far, it seems very reliable with no hint of data loss or corruption.  The encryption used is very strong (probably overkill) and you're shown the relative strength of your password when you first enter it.  Aside from a couple very minor annoyances, this is exactly what I've been looking for, and I can give it a strong recommendation.

Quick Overview of Applications Included

The Steganos Safe 2007 package includes 3 applications:

- Steganos Safe, which allows you to create an encrypted disk drive of just about any size on your PC for storing sensitive data.

- Steganos Portable Safe, which is basically the same as Steganos Safe, except for portable devices such as CD's, DVD's, removable disks, or USB flash drives.

- Steganos Shredder, which allows you to securely delete/wipe files or free space on your hard disk

Steganos Safe

Steganos Safe offers a 30-day fully-functional trial version that may be purchased online (via download) or through Steganos' web site as a boxed product.  I used the fully-functional 30-day trial for this review.

When you first start Steganos Safe, you aren't given many choices (which is good).  About your only option is to create a new 'secure drive.'  A 'secure drive' is really just a large encrypted file that you store on your C: drive (or other hard disk).  This secure drive is opened (mounted) to a drive letter of your choosing, e.g. Z:.  You may open or close one or more secure drives as you wish; each will occupy its own drive letter.  When creating a secure drive, you choose the location for the encrypted file.  You can put it anywhere on your hard disk.  You decide which drive letter to assign it to, and you assign a password. 

Passwords

As you type the password, you're given a rating of 1-5, indicating the strength or "crackability" of the password.  A rating of 5 means that your password is basically uncrackable.

You may also select an option that lets you securely store the password on a USB flash drive (one of those little removable "thumb" drives about the size of a stick of gum).  This is a very cool feature, and it makes accessing your secure drive very convenient.  If you choose to store the password on a USB stick, you can tell Steganos to automatically open/close the secure drive whenever you insert/remove the thumb drive.  If you don't happen to have the thumb drive handy, you can still manually enter the password.  This combination is extremely convenient, and I really like the way it works.  Note that it doesn't store your encrypted data on the USB drive -- just an encrypted file containing the password for your secure drive.  (If you want to store actual encrypted data on your USB drive, that's what Steganos Portable Safe is for, and it's described later in this review.)

If you have multiple secure drives, you can store their passwords on the same USB drive, and you can choose to have some or all of them open when you insert the USB drive.

Hotkeys

You can also assign a hotkey, which must begin with Ctrl+Alt, to open or close a drive (for example, Ctrl+Alt+1).  I had some trouble with this feature -- it didn't always work reliably for all drives, and I had to use one of the other methods on occasion.

Secure Drive Size

You can choose any size to create your secure drive, up to 256GB.  I try to keep mine to about 4.5GB each so I can back them up onto DVD.  One nice feature: you can always resize the drive later if you need to.  It takes a few minutes, depending on the size, but you can shrink or grow the secure drive as you need to.  All data on the secure drive is preserved when shrinking or growing.  However, if you have data on the secure drive, you can't shrink it to be smaller than the data that's already present, of course.

The secure drive immediately uses up all of the space on your C: drive that you assign.  In other words, if you create a new secure drive and make it 5GB, it'll eat up 5GB on your hard disk, even if there's nothing in it yet.  Therefore, it's probably wise to keep them small, since you can always grow them later if you need to.

Moving and Deleting

The secure drive files (they're files that end with a .SLE extension) may be moved or deleted when the drive is closed.  You can either do this through Windows, or through the options in Steganos Safe.  It's generally better to do it through Steganos, because then the window that keeps track of where all of your secure drives are stays up to date.

If you manually move a .SLE file (or restore one from a backup to a new location), you can easily add it back into the list by creating a new secure drive and selecting the option that says 'I want to continue using an existing secure drive.'  You then browse to the .SLE file, enter the password, and assign a drive letter like normal.

Other Options

All of the options for each secure drive are very intuitively grouped under a single button next to each secure drive.  You may change the drive letter, password, file location, hotkey, and whether to automatically open an Explorer window to the drive when it's opened.  You may also specify a command to run after the drive is opened or closed.

Startup and System Tray

Steganos Safe may be configured to start up when you log in.  When minimized, it stays resident in the System Tray.  Double-clicking the System Tray icon brings up the main window; right-clicking the icon gives you quick access to open/close any of your secure drives or exit the program.

Performance Hit

There's about a 50% performance hit, based on a very quick test (that is, reading/writing to the encrypted drive is about half the speed of my normal hard disk).

Busy Files

If an application has a file on the secure drive open, you're given a warning if you try to close the drive, and you're given the option to close it anyway.  One feature that would be nice is a notice of exactly which application has the file open.

Backup, Restore, and (No) Corrupted Data

This is one area I was very concerned about, since I've had bad luck with another encryption program when restoring the encrypted drive.  However, so far, Steganos has worked perfectly and I have had no problems reading a secure drive I have restored from backup (I use Acronis True Image 9.0 for my backups).

There are two ways to back up your encrypted data: either close the secure drive and back up the .SLE file (my preference), or open the drive and back up all the files in it.  There are pros and cons to both.  Backing up the entire image takes up more space, but is completely secure, because the backed up file is encrypted.  Backing up just the files will back them up 'in the clear' (unencrypted).  Your backup software may allow you to assign a password to the backup, but I doubt it's as secure as Steganos' encryption.

I have run several tests where I have backed up an entire secure drive (by backing up its .SLE file), then restoring it to a different location, creating and opening it, and pulling files out of it, and I have had no problems.  The main thing is to remember to CLOSE the drive before backing it up.  (If you run scheduled backups in the middle of the night, just pull your USB drive out before you go to bed -- voila.  Very nice.)

As I mentioned earlier, it is convenient to keep your secure drives 4.7GB or smaller; this way, you can directly burn the .SLE file to a DVD for an offsite backup.

E-Mail Migration

There's also a wizard to help you migrate your e-mail (Outlook only) to use a secure drive, which I did not test.  However, any e-mail program should be able to take advantage of Steganos' encryption; simply place your mail store on a secure drive.  The included wizard simply makes it easier for Outlook users to move it, I think.

Steganos Portable Safe

This is essentially the same product as Steganos Safe, with a couple differences.  First, the data is stored on portable media -- CD, DVD, USB drive, external hard disk or ZIP drive, iPod, etc.  Second, an additional (very small) application is installed on the media to allow to access the secure drive when it's plugged into another machine, even if that other machine doesn't have Steganos installed.  A program called 'starter.exe' is installed, and all you have to do is run it and you're prompted for the password and the drive letter you want to mount the secure drive to.

'Starter.exe' is also added to the autorun.inf file on that drive, which means that in some cases, Windows will run it automatically (not for USB drives, however).

In general, all of the same features are available, except for the ability to store the password on a removable drive -- you must always manually enter the password for secure drives stored using Steganos Portable Safe.

Overall, this is a very easy way to safely store data on a USB drive -- those suckers are easy to lose...

Steganos Shredder

This little utility is included with the package, and simply allows you to permanently destroy files on your hard disk.  You can choose from 3 levels of thoroughness.  You can also wipe any free space on your hard disk that might have chunks of previously deleted files still sitting on it.

Summary

Overall, I have very little to complain about with this application.  It's extremely easy to use and understand, and I really like the way the user interface is laid out.  The ability to user a USB drive, password, and/or hotkey to access a secure drive is very well implemented and extremely convenient.  Backups, restores, and data integrity all seem to be without problems, and the options and settings are complete and easily accessible.

This is a very nice piece of software and I can strongly recommend it.