Three Steps to a More Secure Laptop

By Lamont Wood

September 25, 2006

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Laptop theft is one of the fastest growing problems in the security sector. Who can forget the nightmare scenario that occurred at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs this past May? A department analyst loaded a file onto his laptop and took it home for the night, where burglars promptly walked off with it -- along with identifying information on 26.5 million veterans. While the laptop was eventually retrieved, most are not. Fully 97 percent of all stolen notebooks are never recovered, according to the FBI.

The threat is a big one. An estimated 750,000 laptops were stolen last year, up from 600,000 in 2003, according to Absolute Software, a maker of tools to retrieve lost or stolen laptops.

The threat of lost data is the top worry. But close behind is the fear of identity theft. For system builders, all this means it's mission-critical to have a laptop-security program in place.

In this article, I'll show you how to deploy readily-available, inexpensive technology to protect your customers' laptops " and the data that resides on those systems. This three-step plan includes: Securing the contents of a laptop with basic encryption methods; recovering a stolen laptop using tracking technology; and rendering a stolen laptop virtually unusable to a thief by installing a simple "kill switch." Let's get started.

Encryption

The best justification for deploying laptop encryption: It's now mandatory in many states. California, for example, has a regulation, SB-1386, requiring anyone who does business in California and suffers a breach of unencrypted personal information concerning a California resident to notify that California resident. That Senate Bill became California law in 2003. Today there are similar laws in about 25 other U.S. states. Most state the same thing: Regardless of where the company owning the data is located, notification is required if the data of a state resident is breached. What's more, a single breach can lead to cumulative penalties reaching as much as $10,000 a day.

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