./safeguard --version
1.0

Safeguard is a fast, lightweight, cross-platform command-line file encryption tool written in Go.

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Security Notice

This project is a learning-oriented file encryption tool.

While it uses standard cryptographic primitives from Go’s standard library (e.g. AES-GCM for authenticated encryption), it does not use a modern, memory-hard password key derivation function such as Argon2 or scrypt.

Instead, keys are derived using a lightweight, standard-library-only method. This means:

• The encryption is secure against casual inspection
• Integrity and tampering are detected
• Passwords are not strongly protected against determined brute-force or GPU-based attacks

Do NOT use this tool for:

• High-value secrets
• Long-term storage of sensitive data
• Situations requiring strong password-hardening guarantees

Intended use:

• Learning and experimentation
• Personal or low-risk file protection
• Open-source collaboration and improvement

Contributions that improve security while preserving usability are welcome.

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Installation

Build (req. Go)

git clone https://github.com/pingplus/SafeGuard.git
cd SafeGuard
go build

Usage

General syntax:

./safeguard <file> <action> <cipher> [options]

Actions:

• --encrypt or e Encrypt a file
• --decrypt or d Decrypt a file
• --decrypt-directory or de Decrypt a whole directory (decrypting directory not available yet sorry :( )

Options:

• --inplace decrypt/encrypt a file in place (experimental)
• --key add key
• --output specify the output name

Supported ciphers:

./safeguard --list-ciphers
[i] Available ciphers:
  xor
  caesar
  aes

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AES

Encrypt a file:

./safeguard secret.txt e aes --key "your-strong-password"
# or
./safeguard secret.txt --encrypt aes --key "your-strong-password" --output secret.txt.aes

Decrypt a file:

./safeguard secret.txt d aes --key "your-strong-password"
# or
./safeguard secret.txt --decrypt aes --key "your-strong-password" --output secret.txt.dec

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More

• Encrypt with AES and write in place:

./safeguard secrets.txt e aes --key "123123123123123123123123" --inplace
# -> creates secrets.txt but encrypted

• Decrypt with AES and specify output file :

./safeguard secrets.txt.aes d aes --key "123123123123123123123123" --output secrets_decrypted.txt