Sensitive data can be protected from prying eyes using _________

Protecting sensitive data from being read by unauthorised people who should not have access means preventing them from making sense of the content even if they manage to view or copy the file. This is achieved by scrambling the data into an unreadable form that can only be reversed with the correct key.

This technique is encryption. It converts readable data (plaintext) into unreadable data (ciphertext), so that anyone viewing the file without the decryption key sees only meaningless characters. File permissions and file locks control who is allowed to open or edit a file, and passwords control access to a system or account, but none of these stop the content from being read if the underlying protection is bypassed. Encryption protects the data itself, which directly matches the idea of hiding content from prying eyes.

Exam takeaway: separate access control (permissions, locks, passwords, which decide who may open a file) from content protection (encryption, which hides what the file actually contains even if it is opened).