Keep that laptop data safe and sound

protectionThe proliferation of notebooks and netbooks in use means you now see them everywhere you go in public.  I was pleasantly surprised to see so many of them in public use on my recent trips.  It is clear that mobile computers have become a standard tool for many folks and the adoption of notebooks is going to keep growing.

One thing that many new notebook owners may not realize is that the thing that makes notebooks so appealing, the mobility, brings new risks.  Most folks know that for your computer at home you need to install anti-virus software to protect the system but notebooks can put your very data at risk if you don’t take precautions.

A recent article published by InfoWorld gives a good overview of the protection schemes that can be employed to protect your sensitive data.  It is common to see in the news about a laptop with sensitive data going missing and the outcry is often how they shouldn’t store sensitive data on mobile computers.  The fact is that to each of us our own data is sensitive data that we don’t want in the hands of others so we should do what we can to minimize the damage should that data go missing.

Authorities agree that tens of thousands of notebooks are stolen each week and along with those laptops the data gets stolen too.  The impact of such an event can be devastating not only to businesses but to individuals too.

The InfoWorld article gives a good explanation about the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) approach to data protection which is the best method to keep your data out of improper hands.  The TPM approach uses hardware modules to keep data encrypted so that only the proper user can access it.  Many companies use TPM on their business notebooks but many laptops sold to individuals have them too.  I get upset when I talk to folks who have TPM on their personal laptop but don’t have it enabled.  It is important to get TPM working if you have it.

Another good method to protect your data is to use software data encryption.  The article explains how this works and how to get it going.  Data encryption scrambles all sensitive data so that only the user can access it and while it might not stop a professional data thief it is more than sufficient to keep most laptop thieves at bay when it comes to your data.

Whatever method you employ to protect your stuff from prying eyes will go a long way to helping you deal with the emotional fallout that sets in when your laptop is stolen.  Get yourself some peace of mind and get a protection scheme in place for when the unthinkable happens.

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