Computer Security 101: Laptop Security

Joe Lofshult — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 17:23:41 +0000

With over 600,000 laptops stolen or lost each year (at airports alone), it is important to take the following steps to protect confidential data on your laptop.

Laptop Theft Prevention

Of course, what you really want is to not have your laptop stolen in the first place. Here are some preventative measures you can take to deter someone from running off with your laptop:

Keep it with you when traveling – Don’t check your laptop. Don’t leave it alone in an airport in an obvious laptop bag.

Don’t leave in your car – If you have to keep it in your car, put it in the trunk or under a back seat (especially if you have tinted windows).

Engrave it – Permanently engraving your name, address, and phone number greatly increase the odds of you getting your laptop returned if it gets lost.

Get a cable lock and use it – Cable locks cost less than $40 and will deter casual thieves, even though they won’t stop determined thieves with bolt cutters. You should keep your laptop locked while in a hotel room or while resting in an airport. You may also want to keep it locked down in your office to keep it from walking off.

If Your Laptop Is Stolen or Lost

If, despite your efforts, your laptop does get stolen, you’ll want to know (a) if you can recover your laptop, (b) that the data on your laptop is safe, and (c) you have that data somewhere else so you can get back to work.

Track your laptop – There are several services available that will help track your laptop if it is lost or stolen and aid in the recovery. Some of the services available are Computrace Lojack, MyLaptopGPS, and Trackion. There is also a free, open-source project being developed called Adeona.

Have a backup – Make sure you are using an online or offline backup utility on a regular basis to enable you to recover your data in case of a theft, a hard disk crash, or just an accidental deletion.

Encrypt your hard disk – If you are concerned about sensitive data being stolen from your laptop, you should use encryption. You can either encrypt the entire hard disk, encrypt just the sensitive files, or use an encrypted folder in which you store that sensitive files. I would suggest whole disk encryption since the other options can still leave traces behind that a determined attacker might find.

There are several commercial tools available to encrypt your hard disk from vendors such as PGP, Check Point, McAfee, and BitArmor. There is also the free tool that is my choice, TrueCrypt. TrueCrypt can encrypt your entire hard drive while you are still using it. It will then present you with a password screen at startupto allow the system to boot. With all of these solutions, the security of your system relies on you choosing strong passwords.

Easy Offsite Backups Just plug in one of these disk docking stations...

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Free Security Apps for Small Business

Joe Lofshult — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 13:25:06 +0000

The following products are some top notch, free programs that can be used to secure the information you need to run your business. If you store or process credit card information, these tools can also be used to meet the security requirements of PCI.

Truecrypt (http://www.truecrypt.org/)
Truecrypt is an encryption product that allows you to create an encrypted section of your disk to store data securely. You can either create a virtual, encrypted drive, encrypt an existing drive partition, or encrypt your entire hard disk. It’s easy to use, has good documentation, and is very secure (if you use a good password).
Spybot Search & Destroy (http://www.spybot.com/en/index.html)
Spyware is not only annoying, it can be extremely detrimental to the health of your business. Malicious software, when accidentally downloaded, can steal your private personal information or take over your computer and be used for spying on your business or sending spam emails, among other things. It may also just be a nuisance that makes your computer unusable by slowing it down or constantly popping up ads. Spybot S&D is a free anti-spyware tool that allows you to scan your computer for known spyware and remove it. It also comes with tools that can run in the background and prevent software from being installed without your knowledge.
CCleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/)
When you browse the Internet, your browser keeps a lot of information about what you’ve been doing. It stores cookies, browsing history, search history, and auto complete data from forms, among other things. In addition, Windows itself and the programs you use, store information about your activity on the computer. It keeps information about files you’ve used and programs you’ve run. If someone started snooping around your computer, they could gather quite a bit of information about you. CCleaner securely erases all this information, not only preserving your privacy, but also freeing up quite a bit of hard disk space. CCleaner also somes with tools to optimize your computer startup and fix Windows registry issues.
Eraser (http://eraser.heidi.ie/)
When you delete a file from your computer with Windows, the file is not really gone. The file’s data just sits on the disk until that portion of the disk is overwritten with other data. Even then the old data is not truly unrecoverable. If you want to make sure files get erased to the point that no one could read it, Eraser will do the trick. Eraser works by overwriting your files with specific data patterns and can overwrite the file anywhere from one to thirty-five times, depending on how unrecoverable you want to make the data. Eraser can work on a single file, a folder, or an entire disk partition.
Darik’s Boot and Nuke (http://www.dban.org/download)
Ever upgrade to a new PC and just throw away or give away your old computer? If you don’t want a list of your customers’ credit cards (or other confidential data) falling into the wrong hands, you better make sure to erase it all before you get rid of that computer. Darik’s Boot and Nuke allows you to boot your computer from either a floppy or CD and securely erase all the data on your old hard drive before you dispose of it.

If you’ve used these applications before, please let me know if you liked them or not. Are there other free security programs you’ve used that should be on my next list? Please leave a comment an let me know.

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DMANd Security » Encryption

Computer Security 101: Laptop Security

Laptop Theft Prevention

If Your Laptop Is Stolen or Lost

Free Security Apps for Small Business