Top 10 Tips To Secure Laptops For Airline Travel
Laptops are being banned for travelers between US and United Kingdom. So it is advised it should be packed and checked with the rest of the luggage where it will be out of your sight, and tossed around without regard for its contents. To ensure it is protected and will arrive at your destination safe. The following are the tips for your laptop’s protection:
1.Pad The Laptop: Make sure the laptop is packed as close to the middle of your luggage as possible. You should surround it with soft, cushiony clothing to buffer any bumps and collisions it may go through. For added protection, you can wrap it in bubble wrap or some other packing material.
2.Lock Your Luggage: To ensure your laptop doesn’t ‘accidentally fall out’ of your luggage en route, or otherwise find its way out of your luggage, you should use a TSA-approved luggage lock to secure your suitcase.
3.Back Up Data: Perform a backup of all critical or sensitive data before departing. Just in case your laptop does become damaged or lost, you don’t want to also lose your important files and information. You can buy a new laptop, but it is much harder to replace lost data.
4.Encrypt Your Data: Just in case your laptop should fall into unauthorized hands, you should make sure your hard drive is encrypted. If your company has not implemented any sort of enterprise-wide encryption solution, you can use an open source solution such as TrueCrypt to protect your data.
5.Document Identifying Information: In case your laptop does end up lost or stolen, you should be able to provide detailed information about the make, model, serial number and any other identifying information. You may need the information to file a claim with the airline or your insurance company, or to provide law enforcement.
6.Use Strong Passwords: Follow the advice in Creating Secure Passwords to make sure that your passwords can not be easily guessed or cracked if your laptop falls into the wrong hands.
7.Use a BIOS Password: Protecting your laptop with an operating system login and password is a good idea, but there are ways to circumvent that protection and gain access to the data still. For better protection, you should enable password protection at the BIOS level so that the laptop can not even be turned on without the correct password.
8.Implement Remote Data Protection: Another step you can take to make sure your data does not fall into the wrong hands is to look into products that will allow you to remotely destroy or erase the data on your laptop if it is lost or stolen. These products generally require that the unauthorized user connect to the Internet first in order for them to do their work though, so they are not a guarantee.
9.Use Portable Storage: To make sure you have the business critical PowerPoint presentation or Excel spreadsheet that you need to show your business partners in order to seal the multi-million dollar deal (or whatever other important files and documents might be on your laptp) you should carry a copy on a USB thumb drive or some other type of portable storage that you can hopefully carry on the plane with you.
10.Just Leave The Laptop At Home: When it comes to all of the hassles and all of the issues that can arise by checking your laptop as luggage, consider whether you really need to take it. You can carry your data or files on portable storage such as a CD, DVD or USB drive, or you can just email or FTP the data ahead of you. Then, you can borrow a desktop or laptop system once you are safely on the ground and at the office site you are visiting.
