We have all heard the news stories about large organisations such as banks and medical centers that have lost laptops containing sensitive client data on trains and planes or have just been simply been stolen. Nothing for you to be concerned about, right? After all, you only have your own personal stuff on your laptop. Wrong! Think for a moment about all of the online accounts and systems that you have access to using your laptop.
5 Reasons you should encrypt your laptop
1. Online accounts. Anyone with your laptop may be able to access your Amazon web store, iTunes, Ticketmaster and other web based systems that you regularly spend money with.
2. Private documents. You may have personal documents, correspondence and family photographs. There may be no financial value for a thief but you may not want this information in the public domain.
3. Client or employer data. We’ve all taken documents home from work to finish off. What if this company or client information fell into the wrong hands? You could find yourself in hot water with the boss or, worse, lose your job.
4. VPN Access. Your laptop may be set up to allow you securely access your company’s network. If stolen your laptop could allow those responsible access that network and compromise the security of all your company’s data.
5. Email. Most people store email on their laptops. Your email address book and contact lists could technically be sold off to spam lists and unscrupulous marketeers.
With the right software and determination anyone can have access to the information on your laptop within minutes, even if you have taken the time set a Windows password or a BIOS password. It’s one thing to come to grips with losing your laptop but it’s entirely different when you have to think about who is possibly crawling through the contents of your data and what they are doing with it.
TrueCrypt – Free Open Source Disk Encryption
With a little preparation you can be ready for this scenario and it’s not that expensive. There is even a free Open Source disk encryption product called TrueCrypt that can render you laptop useless should it fall into the wrong hands. This product takes only a few minutes to install and has a wizard that can talk you through the encryption of your system. In addition to this TrueCrypt prompts you to make a recovery disk should you have problems with you system at a later date.
From the user’s perspective the only noticeable difference is that you are prompted for a password before Windows starts. TrueCrypt is available for the following operating systems: Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux
Words of Caution
A few last notes before you rush off to install TrueCrypt or any other encryption product
- As with all programs that make changes to you operating system it is always prudent to make sure that you have an up to date Backup of you data. Also make sure that you know where your system recovery disks for your machine are should you need them. Another valid point make sure your running of mains power you really don’t want to try something disk intensive and run out of power mid process.
- If you travel with your note book in airports you may be asked to boot and allow local law enforcement officers to inspect your system so be prepared to allow them access it.
- One last thing – don’t write your password down and leave it with your system. Yes this does happen! Also make regular backups of your information to a USB disk and keep it safe somewhere away from your machine.
