HOW TO PROTECT DATA ON A LAPTOP AGAINST THEFT

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https://www.haloursynow.pl/artykuly/ranking-uczelni-ktora-z-ursynowa-najlepsza,1737.htm

 

You may have heard about recent theft of students data from SGGW University. The data was kept on one of the employee’s laptop. According to Tvn24[1], these data contained names, surname, PESEL, address, parents’ names, series and number of ID/passport, telephone number, which high school was certain student attending and its’ address and many other important information.

This concerns not only actual students of SGGW, but also these who applied there.

Students must now pay attention to suspicious operations on behalf of their names on their banking accounts, because with this type of data it is easy to take a loan.

https://echalliance.com/cybersecurity-is-forcing-a-rethink-of-strategic-authonomy/

 

Was the computer safe enough? What I mean is if any of the students data will be used illegally by a thief, it means that the laptop hadn’t had specific securities. All data should be protected, they should be encrypted, so that without the encryption one cannot break into the disc and read the data.

Each day technology gets more and more advanced, so why don’t we use it to our advantage? There are certain things we can do have our data safe – of course anything will give you 100% of security, but it is better to have some security systems than not at all. Although any computer system can be broken into in some way, it takes time and a person who is really into hacking things. And if you have blockages, it makes it hard for a hacker to get to you data.

First, most obvious, pay attention to your computer/laptop when you are away from home. It is for sure easy to steal something when nobody’s watching.

As your computer is stolen, there is nothing left for a thief to overcome – if your hard drive is not secured, they can easily put it in another computer and access all your data. That’s why you should encrypt your hard drive. The only way to access such drive is to know a key to unblock it. A key can be a PIN number, just password, but not an easy one (because these are easy to break), or a USB stick with a key in it. You can do it by using different web pages (of course secured, for instance: https…) , such as BitLocker[2] .

 

What more can you do is attaching proximity alarms tracking the actual position of your laptop. Such programmes send you an alert when they detect that the laptop has moved away from you. There is a wide range of such devices. For instance i=you can order one from Sam Labs[3] .

https://int.samlabs.com/products/proximity

 

But there are more ways to break into your computer without stealing it. Your data can be stolen when you are using public Wi-Fi, which is for instance on the airports or in the hotels. This is because there are passwords and emails passed over the same network. Hackers can easily steal your data by having free programs. So next time you are at the airport or on a vacation, think again about connecting to the free Wi-Fi, as all you need to be secure is a small router with a card.

 

As you see, there are many things you can do to protect your data.. And it is always better to have it secured than not, am I right?

 

Written by Karolina Rudko

 

References:

 [1] https://tvn24.pl/tvnwarszawa/najnowsze/warszawa-kradziez-komputera-z-danymi-studentow-sggw-2022240

[2] https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/uspartner_ts2team/2010/03/17/what-is-bitlocker-what-does-it-do-what-does-it-not-do/

[3] https://int.samlabs.com/products/proximity

https://www.computerweekly.com/tip/Laptop-encryption-tips-How-to-secure-a-laptop

 

 

 

 

One thought on “HOW TO PROTECT DATA ON A LAPTOP AGAINST THEFT

  1. Śmiałek Paweł says:

    I am constantly worried about my privacy and security related to modern technology. The new ways of hacking and stealing personal data are something everybody should be aware of, and try to protect their data as well as they can.

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