Laptop Security

When most people think about travel security, they concentrate on their wallets or purses, but having a laptop stolen or lost can be much more damaging. Putting personal data at risk is bad enough, but so many of us use laptops, these computers tend to contain data that can cause a lot of damage if it falls into the wrong hands not to mention the lost dollars in the cost of the computer.

More than 700,000 laptops are stolen each year according to Absolute Software CEO John Livingston, and that is just the United States. Your laptop could be next unless you know how to protect it, and it never hurts to have a plan in place in case your laptop and its precious cargo go missing.

Keep Your Laptop Safe

The only true way to keep your data and computer safe is to make sure it doesn't get stolen in the first place. Write down the laptop's serial number and keep it in your wallet or purse to help resolve mix-ups at the airport or to identify the laptop if it is stolen and recovered.

Purchase locks for your notebook case and consider toting the computer around in a NON-STANDARD case such as the outside pocket of a carry-on suitcase, inside a briefcase, or in a cloth tote bag that you keep with you at all times when traveling. If you use a standard laptop case, consider purchasing a security cable to lock the case to the rest of your luggage in the airport and to secure the case to furniture, pipes, or other fixed objects in the hotel room; hotel safes are rarely large enough to accommodate laptops.

There are motion-sensing alarms designed to go off when the computer is moved, potentially alerting security as the thief is in the act.

PC Radar uses two components to prevent theft. One device attaches to your laptop and the other mobile device is kept in your pocket. The two devices communicate via radio signals and can determine their distance from one another based on how strong or weak the signals become. After the devices reach a predetermined distance, the alarm activates, alerting you that someone is trying to steal your laptop or that you accidentally left you laptop behind.

Tracking and Recover Tools

These are products designed to track missing laptops. When a laptop on which they are installed is reported missing or stolen, the tracking software company waits for the laptop to connect to the internet. If they are using a dial up connection the software company uses the phone number to get the address and contact law enforcement to retrieve the computer. If it is via a broadband connection, the computer's unique IP address is reported to the ISP and they can pass on the thief's address to local law enforcement.

Absolute Software's Computract LoJack for Laptops installs on a laptop hard drive and requires no hardware. The software stays on the hard drive even if it is reformatted or the operating system is reinstalled, and it stays in contact with the computers at Absolute Software when-ever the computer accesses the internet.

CyberAngel Security from CSS is a similar product that protects data in addition to tracking a stolen computer. The software encrypts data on the hard drive.

zTrace Technologies works almost identically to LoJack but the company's optional zControl software provides an interesting option for the security-conscious. You can flag certain files or directories and remotely download, encrypt, or delete the flagged data after the computer is stolen. You also have the option to lock the computer's keyboard and mouse remotely and flash a message on the screen to let the thieves know they've been had.

Additional Precautions

Prevent the thief from accessing your computer by enabling the BIOS password function. Be careful here to use a good complex password but also keep the password stored in a secure location in the event you forget the password. If you forget that one you will not have access to you laptop.

You can, in some BIOS versions, set the system to display your ownership information. Use the business address and name in lieu of your name and home address. You don't want to provide a thief another opportunity to rip you off while you are away on travel.

Make sure you have disabled you guest account on the system and set all user access accounts to a good and complex password to prevent them from accessing the operating system. If you have any restricted (sensitive) data on your machine make sure, at a minimum, you store it in a folder that is encrypted by the operating systems encryption file system. If it doesn't have one then install an encryption program and protect your data. Most important, try to keep all sensitive data off of your laptop.

If you plan on using WiFi (Wireless) to connect to the internet then make sure you provide adequate security measures. Harden the operating system using the NIST template (I have that and can supply it), use adequate password authentication, run a firewall and anti-virus program, run adware/spyware removal tools, and if the access point does not use WEP or WAP2 security (your wireless device may not be compatible with WPA2?) then do no more than check your email.

Buy Insurance

If you have a need to keep restricted data on your computer and you travel a great deal then in addition to all the above you may want to get insurance from a company that specializes in laptop policies. Make sure the company covers theft regardless of where it happens (even outside the United States) and also repairs or replaces covered laptops that are damaged with very few restrictions. Data might be priceless, but at least insurance can prevent the cost of missing hardware from making a more direct hit on your budget.