Laptop Security

Having heard from a valued customer this morning that he had a break-in at home over the weekend, and his laptop stolen, we wanted to remind all our readers of the need to take some precautionary measures to protect themselves.

Laptops, because of their portable nature, are very high on the thieves list of items. There is never a totally foolproof way of dissuading the would-be thieves, but you can take some basic measures to protect yourself.

Realistically, you need to look at your protection in 2 categories:

• Physical Security
• Data Theft/Loss

We do not want to be responsible for scare-mongering, but the information below may afford you a little protection from the casual thief, a scourge in our society. A little additional security may be all you require, and at least can improve your probability of staying secure, rather than doing absolutely nothing to protect yourself.

The Physical Security of your laptop can be aided by using the following measures:

1. Lock your laptop up in a secure and covert cupboard/locker when not being used. This may save it when the burglar comes to visit, and may stop those who are ‘casing’ your premises with a view to seeing what to steal.
2. If in an office environment, use a docking station, as you can lock your laptop into this. This will prevent the opportunist type of criminal.
3. Get a cable lock. Most modern laptops come with a Universal Security Slot which allows for attachment to a large or immovable object. These security cables are not expensive nowadays, and can be sourced from any number of outlets online.
4. When travelling with your laptop, don’t carry it in a computer case. This makes you an obvious target for laptop thieves. Get a padded sleeve and carry your laptop in a regular briefcase or a backpack instead. These again are inexpensive, and easily sourced.
5. Again, when travelling, do not leave your laptop unattended, even for a moment. the opportunist criminal is always on the lookout for people off their guard.
6. Ensure you have some sort of security marking on the reverse of your laptop - making it both difficult to resell for the criminal, and easy to trace back to the owner in the event of being recovered.
7. Have all of the details of your laptop stored somewhere, including Make, Model, Serial Number, Specification, etc. This will be useful for both insurance and police purposes.
8. Register your laptop with the manufacturer. This will mean that it will be returned to you, should a thief have to send it away for repair.

Data Theft/Loss can be an even bigger problem, and steps should be taken to ensure you are as safe as can be. Think about using some/all of these measures:

1. Ensure you have adequate backups of everything on your laptop. Once it is gone, it is gone, and you may have some very important data on there.
2. Password protect any sensitive data, although most criminals will now be able to bypass these basic passwords nowadays (but not all, so this will offer a little protection).
3. You could use WinZip or the likes to archive important data files, and add password protection there too. This is quite basic encryption, but may help with some of the criminal elements. Think of this as a ‘cheap padlock’.
4. True, industrial-strength encryption can be provided by using something like TrueCrypt. Truecrypt is a free piece of software, which can encrypt an entire volume (such as pen-drive, Hard Disk, etc), or it can be used to provide a virtual encrypted disk. the second of these is very secure, but advice should be sought on how best to utilise this, if you are less than an advanced user.
5. Disable the ‘Guest’ User Account in Windows. This can be done in the Control Panel. It is good practise to also assign it a long password, as an added security measure.
6. Utilise passwords on all other accounts on your laptop. Again, these can be bypassed, but not by the basic opportunist criminal.
7. Don’t set your laptop to automatically log into websites, as this allows the criminal to ’steal’ your account on that particular website. Don’t store passwords on there either.
8. If you do not use it, disable the ‘infra-red’ port on your laptop, to deter thieves who can utilise this to steal your data (maybe without you even knowing about it).
9. When using WiFi in a public place (such as an Airport, etc), do not enter any private information at all, unless you are sure that the Wifi is a secure connection.

Hopefully the above information will enable our readers to add a little security to their laptop & data, and if it stops even one person from having the problems our customer has had, then we will feel our article was worth the time it took to write.

As always, any additional items you think we may have overlooked are welcome.