Taking a laptop? Keep it and your precious data safe
By Marc Saltzman
Gannett News Service
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If you're one of the millions of Americans who travel with a laptop computer for business or pleasure, are you sure you're properly protecting your computer companion?
According to tech security giant Symantec, a laptop is stolen every 53 seconds in the U.S. — and 97 percent of them are never recovered.
Losing the computer itself may be the least of your worries when you consider the valuable data that resides on it: financial records, passwords, private documents or irreplaceable digital photos.
"The key to protecting your personal or business data is encryption and backup," says Peter Firstbrook at Gartner Research. "With encryption, you are preventing someone from accessing your information, while backing up your data is a safeguard in case your laptop is stolen, damaged or lost."
With that in mind, the following is a look at software and hardware solutions for protecting your laptop, and perhaps more important, the critical files that reside on it:
"People believe password protection is enough, and it isn't," says Marty Leamy, president of security software maker Pointsec Mobile Technologies. An expert can crack a weak password in minutes, Leamy says. Security experts recommend encryption programs, which generally require very strong passwords. You can try many of them before you buy at www.download.com.
The rugged SanDisk (www.sandisk.com) Titanium Cruzer USB drives ($54.99 for 1 gigabyte of memory or $79.99 for 2GB) offers built-in encryption software to prevent thieves from accessing your files.
Computer users who need to back up a lot of information might opt for an external hard drive (a 250GB model can be found for less than $100).
Manufacturers such as Lenovo (www.lenovo.com) and Sony (www.sonystyle.com) offer fingerprint readers on many of their laptops, such as the Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (starts at $959) and the Sony Vaio TX notebook series (starting at $2,299).
Tracking services, which may use GPS signals or silent alarms when connected to the Internet, may be better for when the authorities are trying to crack a larger theft ring rather than recovering individual computers, Firstbrook says.
A new kind of phishing attack has surfaced in which computer users believe they're signing onto a public wireless network with their credit card, but it's really someone nearby with a wireless computer attempting to steal your identity.
Kensington (http://us.kensington.com), for example, offers a key-based MicroSaver DS Notebook Lock ($54.99) or a MicroSaver Combination Notebook Lock ($39.99) with a keyless four-wheel combination lock style.
