Last month the Oregon National Guard reported that they are dealing with the aftermath of a stolen laptop computer that contained the names and social security numbers of more than 3,500 soldiers. It happened when a Guard member used his laptop to conduct work from home and reported it stolen from his vehicle in the Portland area on June 21.
Statistics show that nearly three out of five personal computer users are lost, stolen, or damaged every year and, by the way, the most common place to lose a laptop is in the airport.
Think about it for a moment; one person left a laptop containing sensitive data in his car and now the financial life of 3,500+ families are at risk.
Laptop theft statistics show that the theft of one laptop results in an average financial loss of $89,000; only a small percentage of the sum actually relates to the hardware cost. (Source: Computer Security Institute/FBI Computer Crime & Security Survey).
In today’s corporate world when employees work out of the office with mobile computers, protecting mobile users is must! A proper data backup protection strategy will save you tons of headache and problems.
Here are the four things you must do in order to secure your mobile computers.
- The best way to protect mobile data is to remove unnecessary data from your computer. Prohibited data should not be stored on your system or device unless it’s really necessary.
- Configure a username/password combination to access the data/device.
- If you carry sensitive data on your laptop I highly recommen you use Disk Encryption Software.
- Do not leave a single copy of your data on your mobile device; backup your data automatically every day to a secure remote data storage like PCIC’s.
These guidelines are easy to implement and can protect your data in the event that your mobile computers become compromised, lost or stolen.
And one more last thing, do in today! Tomorrow might be to late.
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