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There are two types of laptop thieves – one who steals it to sell to a third party and the other one who wants your sensitive and confidential data. Laptop use has grown. Unfortunately, thieves also see the opportunities that present due to people bringing along and displaying this expensive portable device.

 

Protect your information

If the laptop does get stolen, you would want to make it as difficult as possible for the thief to access your files. Protect them with a password. If the thief fails to provide the correct bios password for three times, the laptop refuses to boot. After restarting though, the thief again has 3 guesses. A login password is useful because if it’s entered incorrectly, the thief can’t log in as an active user.

Drawbacks of protecting your information

You can also encrypt your entire hard drive or you can limit it to certain files or folders but there’s a drawback; it causes the system to lag. Then imagine losing that password. My sources tell me that it’s not impossible but it’s extremely difficult to get your files back. Those are not good odds.

 

Some laptops use biometrics to secure their information. There are various means: retina or fingerprint scan, voice identification, there’s even a face geometry software that’s able to recognize the owner’s features.

 

Tracking system for laptops

You may subscribe to a tracking system; it can locate a stolen laptop that has been turned on and connected to the internet. The tracking company will then notify the police, who will in turn get a search warrant and hopefully retrieve your laptop.

 

Conclusion

There’s no foolproof way yet. The laptop’s main attraction (its portability) is also what makes it vulnerable. As technology advances, thieves will only find more sophisticated means to crack the security system.

 

Nothing beats common sense. To prevent anyone from accessing your sensitive data, how about storing this information on a removal medium such as a cd or a zip disk. You probably don’t need all those anyway when you travel. It may be a bit inconvenient but it sure beats losing all your files, exposing yourself to identity theft and having all your secrets spilled.

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Tags: Laptop, SECURITY

This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 5:29 am and is filed under Other, and is tagged with Laptop, SECURITY. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.