Tech Tip: Protecting Mobile Information

If you’ve ever lost a laptop, you know how upsetting it can be.  The first thing that comes to mind is the cost of the laptop.  The second thing that comes to mind should be the information that is stored on the laptop.  On your personal computer, the information stored from your personal finance system and email can be used by identity thieves.  For business laptops, proprietary and competitive information can easily be shared and posted.  In both cases, the value of your information easily surpasses the value of the laptop.

So how do you protect your information?  An easy and effective way to ensure your private data stays private is through encryption.

There are several utilities that can encrypt your data.  TrueCrypt (www.truecrypt.org) is an open-source encryption utility that is available for windows, mac and linux platforms.  With TrueCrypt, you create a secured file partition that is accessed as another drive on your computer.  A password required to access that drive.  Once that drive has been created you can drag and drop files as you would with any other drive on your computer.  Files accessed from the secured drive are encrypted on-the-fly in memory so there are no temporary decrypted files.  When you’re done,   all files in the partition are encrypted and can only be accessed with the right password.  Furthermore, the files are located in a file-based partition so no one can even see the files without permission.

There are other options for encrypting your data.  For Windows Vista, there is BitLocker and File Vault for Mac is included in OS X v10.3 and later.  Like any other security measure, they are only effective if used.

Tags: Encryption, Laptop, Mobile, Security