Tag archive for ‘laptop security’
Annual Cost of a Data Breach Study Released: $7.2 Million Per Breach
The Ponemon Institute has released their annual Cost of a Data Breach Study. As usual, it’s a nice, concise trove of useful information. Symantec completed their acquisition of PGP over the past year, so the formerly PGP-sponsored study is now Symantec-sponsored. Symantec’s press release and study download page, as well as a blog post by [...]
Rip of the Week: Laptop with Secret Super Bowl XLV Content Stolen
Arlington, TX police are investigating the theft of a laptop that contained information related to Super Bowl security, MSNBC.com reports. The laptop contained artwork that was to be used for part of security credential process, and it was stolen outside a Joe’s Crab Shack near Interstate 30. However, police indicate that security for the Super [...]
Tip of the Week: Gather the Key Players, Consider the Cost
This week’s Tip of the Week dovetails with a guide released by ANSI and ISA, mentioned here and at NextGov, which was a response to a White House review of cybersecurity policy. In it, the point is driven home that data security is actually not a problem for “the IT department.”
It’s worth emphasizing repeatedly that [...]
Rip of the Week: Royal London Mutual Insurance Society Loses Eight Laptops and the Personal Details of 2,135 People
This week’s Rip involves a case of eight lost laptops in the UK, from the Royal London Mutual Insurance Society. According to an SC Magazine report, and thanks to Jake K via DataLossDB, 2,135 people were breached when unencrypted laptops were lost by the RLMIS.
This story, however, is replete with the most poignant and [...]
Tip of the Week: Security Through Obscurity is Not Security
There’s a very tried-and-true saying in the security world: “Security through obscurity is not security.” It is extremely common for users of technology to assume that “the bad guys” will not know how to break in, steal, hack, alter, or achieve whatever damage is in question. A similar belief is that “they wouldn’t be interested [...]
Rip of the Week: Long Island’s “Million-Dollar Laptop”
Here is an example of a theft where the true damage is readily identified. That is rare.
Christopher Keating over at Courant.com reports that Attorney General released a 37-page report on Tuesday, October 13, that said that the state tax department failed to safeguard the sensitive data of citizens after acting “in a ‘cavalier and careless’ [...]
Tip of the Week: Encryption + Tracking = Serious Protection
It’s true that today is the big official release of MyLaptopGPS Encryption. This is a big deal.
But I’d be remiss not to issue a tip that puts my money where my mouth is. Or, that is, why not follow my own advice?
Laptop tracking, remote data destruction, covert data recovery, and a 99.6% security success rate [...]
Tip of the Week: Use a BIOS Password
Since layered security is so fundamental to effective security, it helps to have yet another layer. This one is actually fairly strong, at least in one sense.
Set a password in your laptop’s BIOS. This is not the Windows password that would be used to access Windows, but a low-level password that is set right in [...]
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