Six Steps to Protect Your Laptop Against Identity Theft

Our laptops have become all-in-one media sources, the centers of both business and entertainment. They show us movies, and organize our pictures, our music, our life. But the central role of these devices in our lives has highlighted a serious identity crisis. It’s the kind of crisis that leads to identity theft.

Consider just how much vital personal and professional information we keep on mobile computing devices:

• Auto-login information to banks, brokerages, and businesses
• Contact information on just about everyone we care about
• Tax records, bank statements, and checking account numbers
• Work-related login information, company data, employee records, competitive information • Sensitive e-mails, photos, and documents

Do you realize that almost half of workplace identity theft takes place because of mobile data? And for an experienced identity thief, the average value of the data on a laptop is hundreds of thousands of dollars. At the higher end of the scale, the value of the 26 million veterans' identities on a laptop lost over a year ago was estimated to be more than $100 million on the black market. But your laptop doesn’t have to be worth that much to make protection worthwhile.

Six Steps to Protect Your Laptop Identity

1. Leave it at home. Okay, most of us won’t leave our laptops at home when travelling because we would be leaving our digital identity behind. But the risk of theft is even higher when we're travelling, so consider using your iPhone or BlackBerry to keep in touch, or use the computer in the business center at your hotel (but be careful of what information you enter into it). If it is critical that you keep your laptop with you, then…
2. Carry less data. Stop carrying data on your computer that you don’t absolutely need. If you don’t need to have client information on the hard drive, don’t put it there in the first place. Don’t keep your child’s Social Security Numbers in your contact manager or your investment account numbers in a spreadsheet. If you have an encrypted VPN connection with your company, pull the files off of your corporate network once you are at your destination (e.g., work, hotel, meeting).
3. Use strong passwords. Passwords are the primary locks on our computers. Make sure that you create an alpha-numeric-symbol-upper-lower-case password, like P@55w0rd! (See the hidden word that makes this easy to remember? By the way, don’t use this password.) The longer the password, the better. I recommend passwords greater than 8 characters.
4. Use the hotel safe. Most hotels have safes in the room that let you set the combination. I feel that these are relatively secure. Sometimes your laptop won’t fit, so I suggest that you pull the hard drive (which is where all of the identity lives) out of the laptop and place that in the safe. In a pinch, place the DO NOT DISTURB sign on your door when you leave for the day to lower the chances of someone entering your room while you're away. True, your room won’t get cleaned, but you are keeping potential thieves not just from your computer, but from any client documents, passports, or intellectual capital that might be in the room. No matter how clever we are, hiding valuables is a poor option. Can’t you just picture a person who appears to be a hotel employee leisurely searching the few hiding places in your room? A thief will know every one of those spots by heart.
5. Encrypt your hard drive. The data on your hard drive is no good if the thief can’t make any sense of it. For a very small investment, you can install software on your computer that makes it exceptionally difficult for a thief to get to your private information. Encryption turns your data into a puzzle that only your password unlocks. If you are using a company computer, check with your IT department before installing encryption. They may have already done it for you.
6. Lock it up. Even when you are not travelling, the best policy is to physically lock up your laptop. More laptops are stolen out of the back of cars while you are shopping; out of your computer bag while buying coffee; out of your office while it is unattended; and out of homes while you are on vacation. Take an extra minute to lock it up in a locking filing cabinet or fire safe, or behind a locked door. Even if this preventive measure only makes it less convenient for the thief, it improves your chances that they will move on to a less prepared victim.

Remember, your data has a much longer life than your laptop! When you are through with your laptop, make sure that you digitally shred the hard drive before you donate it, give it back to the HR department, or throw it away. Just because the computer is out of date doesn’t mean that the data on it is as well.

John Sileo became America's leading identity theft speaker and expert after he lost his business and more than $300,000 to identity theft and data breach. His clients include the Department of Defense, Pfizer, and the FDIC. To further bulletproof yourself and your business, visit John's blog at Sileo.com and receive a free white-paper: "Privacy Means Profit: Safe Data = Profitable Data."