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Posts Tagged ‘Hard disk drive’

Laptop theft at New Mexico

May 11th, 2010

: Image via Wikipedia

Laptop encryption is vital not only from a perspective of providing protection against laptop theft but also from a view of ensuring the data present inside laptop is secure and upto date.

A couple of months back, an employee for a company that processes dental benefits claims filed for a stolen car report. Apparently, the vehicle’s trunk contained an ‘un-secure/unencrypted’ laptop which had loads of patient information. On learning about the incident, the New Mexico Human Services Department started sending notification messages to nearly 10,000 users of the government’s low-income health insurance program about potential for ID theft.

The information of patients included:

Name
Health plan identification number
A provider identification number but not the name of the provider

Additionally, the agency has also notified 9,500 New Mexicans who use its Medicaid Salud plan about a possible security breach.

Apart from notification letters, the group has set up a toll-free call line through DentaQuest, 1-877-453-8424, to address queries from people affected by the incident. The helpline operates from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. MDT, Monday through Friday.

According to the agency, “The computer was password protected but otherwise did not have safeguards to prevent unauthorized access to the information. At this time, the stolen car and laptop have not been recovered and it is not known whether the information on the laptop has been accessed.”

The theft and security breach has been reported to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Stay Secure with Alertsec

Alertsec is the frontrunner in offering hard disk encryption as a fully managed service. We provide protection for all information stored on laptops and PCs in an easy, convenient, and cost-effective way. Alertsec Xpress is powered by Check Point Full Disk Encryption – the global leader in data encryption software with millions of users worldwide! For more information, visit our website right now.

Encrypting part of /home (bgoglin.livejournal.com)
Health insurance will be reformed by a little known department (kevinmd.com)
Security Breach Threatens Soldiers’ & Civilians’ Personal Information (homesecuritysource.com)

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Posted in Encryption

Tags: Cryptography Encryption Hard disk drive Health insurance laptop New Mexico security United States Department of Health and Human Services

Laptop Encryption & Alertsec Xpress

May 9th, 2010

: Image via Wikipedia

In today’s competitive business environment organizations are making increasing investments on IT infrastructure, devices and software. Needless to say, laptops are an inherent part of your organization’s growing business plan.

Today, laptops hold critical business data including sensitive customer information and this is where encryption is constantly considered to the best method to ensure data security.

Organizations must deploy encryption as a part of their overall security protection methods. One thing that needs to be considered is the pitfalls of encryption. Today, many of the encryption softwares come security flaws and loopholes which allow attackers easy ways leading to compromise in the organization’s data. Some of the common issues are Algorithm Management, Key Length, Key Recovery, Scope of Protection.

A stolen laptop without encryption is often the first step towards identity theft and fraud. 80% of information theft results from lost or stolen equipment. 50% of network intrusions take place using credentials from lost or stolen equipment. With laptop security, none of the information or credentials would have been lost.

Goal of laptop encryption/disk encryption

Assuming the unthinkable happens and one of your laptop is stolen, what would you do? That missing laptop contained intellectual property and critical data which included the information of customers, their financial records and information on future business strategy and product roadmaps.

Let us say you’re caught in a similar situation, you would want the data on your computer hard-drive to be nullified or in other words you would want your hard-drive to be encrypted.

To protect information stored on a desktop or laptop is by using encryption. Alertsec Xpress offers full disk encryption and offers stronger options to other encryption methods when comparing security, performance, robustness.

Why Alertsec Xpress is different?

Strong Support: Users who forget their password simply call the Alertsec helpdesk. No matter when or where you are, our helpdesk can always assist legitimate users regain access to their information, using the Alertsec Xpress Authentication Method.
Secure disposal of old laptops: You can easily move away from your old laptop. When it is time to decommission your laptop or PC, you can simply reformat the disk and it will be impossible for anyone to ever recreate the information.
Secure & Trusted: The Check Point Full Disk Encryption software solution is trusted by companies, governments, military organizations, and individuals around the globe and its secure design has been approved through independent security tests and certifications.
Built in security measures: Alertsec Xpress will detect boot viruses or debugging programs and prevent these from interfering with the authentication process.

For features and benefits of our computer protection software please visit our website.

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Posted in Alertsec Express, full disk encryption, laptop encryption

Tags: Computer security Cryptography data encryption data security disk encryption Encryption full disk encryption Hard disk drive Hard Disk Encryption identity theft laptop encrytion Personal computer security

Alert: New ICO Penalties Beginning Next Month

March 23rd, 2010

: Image by smallcaps via Flickr

If you & your brand were thinking that you could get away with incidents of data theft and loss, think again ! The security industry is planning to come up with stringent and stricter rules which will lead to sever penalties for any cases that report data loss.

These new rules have been issued by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) and are all set to be rolled out starting 1st week of April. According to Clearswift CEO Richard turner, the level of financial penalty is set to rise to a maximum of £500 000 (from £5 000), for those companies who do not comply with the Act.

Apparently, Clearswift has been helping organizations to equip themselves with the most sophisticated content inspection technology in the industry & protect companies of confidential data.

According to Turner, “Organisations can no longer ignore the seriousness of corporate data breaches and not complying with the Data Protection Act. On 6th April 2010, the Information Commissioner is upping the financial penalties to act as a deterrent for companies who flout these rules”.

In a recent incident, Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) had reprimanded the Royal London Mutual Insurance Society for breaching the Data Protection Act. The penalty was issued after the theft of eight of the firm’s laptops, two of which contained details of 2,135 people from the company’s Edinburgh offices. The data were password protected but unencrypted.

What the Analysts Say

Industry analysts have expressed their view points on the imposition of these fines,

Susan Hall, partner and IT specialist at Cobbetts thinks, “These new fines will have a profound impact on internal procedures, especially at medium-sized, data-rich businesses, whose growth commonly outmatches their internal development and the maintenance of procedures”.

Dave Ellis, e-security director at security distributor Computerlinks said, “Mid-market firms have not been under as much pressure so this should open up some good opportunities.”

Stewart Room, a keynote speaker at Infosecurity Europe & partner at Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP, believes that organisations need to focus on two vital aspects: the system and the operations. The system defines the security position via documented rules, policies and procedures. Operations details out the implementation of system in daily activities. According to Stewart, in a recent online poll a third of organisations admitted if they have experienced a security breach tomorrow they do not have a system in place to adequately deal with the incident.

Go Secure, Choose Alertsec Now

Alertsec is the frontrunner in offering hard disk encryption as a fully managed service. We provide protection for all information stored on laptops and PCs in an easy, convenient, and cost-effective way. By using industry leading Check Point Full Disk Encryption (former Pointsec) software, Alertsec has created a web based encryption service that radically simplifies deployment and management of PC encryption. Alertsec Xpress offers computer security software from Check Point as a fully customizable and pre-packaged data encryption software solution.

For further information, please email us on info@alertsec.com.