According
to Safeware Insurance Group 53% more laptops were stolen this year than
last. Theft is the #1 threat to your laptop. These thefts can
occur at airports, restaurants, your hotel room, anywhere that you leave your
laptop unattended even for a few moments.
Theft
is a double-edged sword. Not only do you lose your laptop, but you
lose everything that was stored inside it. This could be business proposals
and contracts, all of your contacts, and your sensitive personal information
like bank accounts and PINs. There is no end to the bad things that
can happen when thieves get a hold of your data. The second threat to your laptop is having it connected
to foreign networks. This happens when you visit a client and plug
your laptop into their network, or when you get broadband internet
connectivity. Unless you have
the proper protection on your laptop you are subject to getting any viruses
that the network has and you are also open to having your laptop "scanned" by
an unscrupulous employee who is out to steal your data.
Of course, there is also the ever-present danger of just
dropping the darn thing and having it break into pieces.
There are many different solutions available to lock
down your laptop and protect it form theft and attack. Here are some
examples:
You can protect yourself from someone simply picking
up your laptop and walking away with it by using products like Kryptonite's
KryptoVault ($79.95) which uses steel "arms" to secure your
laptop to your desk. You can unlock then when you need to travel. When
you are traveling then you might want to pick up products like Kryptonite's
Cable or Kensington Lock's MicroSaver ($74.99), Secure-It's Kablit,
X-Lock and iBook cable locks ($29.95 each) or the Vanguard II that
attaches to the 9-pin adapter on the back of your laptop and then gets
secured to any nearby immovable object.
Then there's the Targus DEFCON 1 Notebook Computer Security
System ($49.99) which includes a motion sensor that sounds a 45 second,
110 dB
alarm if the cable gets cut or the laptop is moved.
Besides theft deterrents there are always recovery products
like Absolute Software's CompuTrace ($49.95 for software and 1 year
of monitoring) which can track and locate your PC should the thief
ever connect it to the Internet. It's sort of like LoJack for your laptop.
If you're into really high-tech solutions then consider
getting Caveo Technology's Caveo Anti-Theft solution. It works by installing
a motion sensor into an available card slot. You create a special "tilt
pattern" that your laptop recognizes as your special password.
If anyone tries to turn on the computer without first tilting it in
the pattern that you've defined then it locks itself down and powers
off.
Of course, none of these solutions will help you protect
yourself against hacking and virus attacks, but don't worry -- we've
got you covered there. Read these articles listed below and you'll be
all set.
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