Today, you have laptop computers coming and going and it seems like every day a new and even smaller laptop model comes out. The challenge is that most people don’t realize what they really have on their laptop.
While people like the convenience of the small laptops, from an IT perspective the smaller the laptop the easier it is to be lost or stolen. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “But all my data is on the network, there’s nothing important on my PC.”
One of the key reasons why we encrypt all our laptops is that no matter how careful you think you are – your laptop has data. Consider all these things that can be on your computer:
Passwords saved in your browser – You know you shouldn’t do this. You know it’s not secure. But admit it – most of us have saved at least one or two passwords in our browser. It won’t take a thief more than a minute to track these down. I used Firefox and it just took me only 4 clicks to see the entire list I have saved on my home PC!
Not using unique passwords – Let’s all keep going with the confessions. How many of your accounts use the same password? You have to – the human brain can only hold so much. So if a thief gets one of your passwords, they are likely to be able to hack into multiple accounts.
History saved in the browser – You might think, “well a thief won’t know what sites I visit” but you are dead wrong because of the saving of bookmarks, sites visited and the browser cache.
Access to the corporate network - The above issues might just effect an employee’s personal information, but how many of your employees have saved the password to their VPN or other access client on the PC.
These examples are just the tip of the iceberg as there are so many instances where convenience outweighs security on laptops.
For an employee, losing a laptop could be worse than losing their wallet or purse. As noted with the VPN issue, the company will suffer from potential access to their network. But the company will also see productivity issues as the employee will be spending many hours closing accounts and on hold with busy call centers – typically during the busy workday. Your loss from just one laptop theft could be more than a year of data encryption protection with AlertSec Xpress for your fleet of laptops!
As the IT manager some days I long for the mainframe days. All you had was one big computer in a computer room with a nice big lock on the door. Anything outside the computer room was nothing more than dumb terminals linked to the mainframe. No Internet, no dial-up – just a really secure computer system. But since we are not going back to those days – I use protection wherever and whenever I can.
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