5 Tips for Guarding Your Business Laptop

There it was: My laptop, dangling precariously, suspended high in the branches of a thorny Jalapeno tree that towered more than 50 feet above a pit of molten lava. 

I stood before the tree with a small electric chainsaw and my trusty pair of knee-high rubber boots, prepared to do whatever was needed to rescue her and to put her safely back into my bag. After all, I had a meeting in less than an hour and while all of my notes and charts were backed up onto a nice thumb drive, I’d foolishly left the drive plugged into my laptop which was snatched out of my rental car by this wicked tree. 

Chainsaw in hand, I entered the pit.  The tree had to die...

This dream (and many others like it) plagued me the other night after doing a bit of research into laptop theft.  It’s at an all-time high.  A laptop computer is pilfered every 53 seconds in the United States, and more than 12,000 laptops are reported stolen from U.S. airports each week. 

While it may seem ridiculous that people would put on nice clothes and hang out in the airport all day, waiting for the opportunity to casually pick up your laptop bag and march right out the door with it as if it were their own, that’s exactly what people do -- and you need to be on your guard.

While it’s true that laptops are relatively cheap, the data they store isn't.. The average laptop can be a treasure trove for an identity thief or for a corporate spy.  Even if you’re super-careful, and there’s no trace of your social security number, credit card numbers, or other sensitive data in your laptop’s hard-drive, you need to know that your laptop bag is a target.  People want it and they’ll use all kinds of sneaky ways to take it. 

So take a few precautions so that this doesn’t happen to you.

1. Don’t leave your bag unattended.  I know, this seems like trite and stupid advice, but people still ask their airport neighbors if they’ll watch a bag while they go to the bathroom or something.  Don’t do it.  Take your bag with you all the time.

2. Don’t leave your laptop visible in your rental car.  Ever.  Heck, the newer cars beep at you if your laptop fails to buckle the seatbelt in the passenger seat so just use that ridiculous chime to remind you to put the laptop in the trunk where it is out of the direct line of sight of any would-be laptop thief.

3. Take your laptop into your hotel room with you. Don’t leave it in the car.

4. Since your bag is a target, you might want to take the extra precaution of backing up important data to a memory stick or thumb drive, and keeping that data in a separate bag or in your pocket when you travel.

5. Get rid of the "free bag" that came with your laptop.  Thieves can spot it a mile away.  Consider a laptop backpack or a carry-on bag with a laptop zip pocket.  You’ll be far more careful with your bag if it has more of your valuables and things inside, and you’ll be more apt to take it with you if it’s easier to roll or carry than the free bag.

I can’t remember how my dream ended. I’ll have to wait for the movie.  The hero probably sawed, cut, and ate his way to the top only to regain his data at the cost of some hellish heartburn and a lava scar or two above the knee.

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EXTRA:  Please feel free to leave comments on this article! If you have questions for Ken regarding business travel, hotels, airplanes, etc, please send him a "Tweet" on his twitter account.  You can also follow Ken on Twitter @foodbreeze!