Lets say those files contain some important data(ex. your credit card database data) and you are a little paranoid when thinking about unsecured network connections.
In case you are running Linux, you are in luck, the Gnu Privacy Guard (GPG) is an free encryption tool that can encrypt or sign your files/archives with a password or an access key.
Basic usage
- open up a ssh terminal console
- Encryption command:
gpg -c <file_name>
– this will create a new file called <file_name>.gpg which is your encoded file
- Decryption command:
gpg <file_name>.gpg
The full online usage manual of the gpg command can be found on The GNU Privacy Guard Handbook webpage.
Good luck:)