The headline "Laptop - Along with Hundreds of Thousands of Identities - Stolen" seems to be repeating itself -- over and over again -- these days. Whether it's an executive trusting the hotel cleaning staff or a name-brand auditor storing his laptop unsecured in his car (who, by the way, would ding his clients on an annual review for such carelessness) -- laptops and other physically insecure computers are getting lost and stolen by the truckload.
It's no longer just an inconvenience to lose a laptop. Being careless in today's overly governed society now leads to business contracts being dishonored, laws being broken, and industry regulations being violated. Above all, it's putting a lot of sensitive information at risk -- both trade secrets and, more importantly, personal livelihoods. According to the
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Chronology of Data Breaches Reported
Since the ChoicePoint Incident, as of this writing a total of 31,796,785 identities have been
compromised due to lost or stolen computers! There are dozens of these incidents listed on the
Privacy Rights Clearinghouse site, and in many cases, it is unknown how many identities were put at
risk.
For crying out loud -- why aren't people speaking out about this problem? More importantly, why aren't organizations doing anything about this problem? You want to do the right thing and keep your laptops secure? Read on.
Laptop Hacking
Home: Introduction
Step 1: How it can happen
Step 2: How to crack a laptop
Step 3: How to secure a laptop
Step 4: Laptop security summation
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
| Kevin Beaver, CISSP, is an independent information security consultant, author and
speaker with Atlanta-based Principle Logic LLC. He has more than 18 years of experience in IT and
specializes in performing information security assessments. Beaver has written five books
including Hacking For Dummies (Wiley), Hacking Wireless Networks For Dummies,
(Wiley) and The Practical Guide to HIPAA Privacy and Security Compliance (Auerbach). He can
be reached at kbeaver@principlelogic.com. Copyright 2006 TechTarget |
This was first published in September 2008