| Every time I purchase a new laptop with updated | | | | the health of your system. It's worth paying |
| OS, more hard disk space, more RAM, nice-looking | | | | attention to SMART hard drive technology, it gathers |
| design I think about possible security problems I | | | | the valuable information about your hard disk health |
| might face. | | | | and share it with you, giving you an estimates about |
| It's not a desk PC, which is placed at home or office | | | | how long you will be able to use your hard disk. I'm |
| where the access is limited, laptop is a portable | | | | sure your laptop already have some software that |
| device, which is easier to lost and it can be stolen. | | | | will represent you this information, but there are also, |
| So, it's a good idea to think about proactive security | | | | some nice third-party tools. |
| measures that can be performed to prevent security | | | | Pay attention to your firewall and web-browser. |
| accidents. | | | | Installing a good firewall software or just configuring |
| First, I prefer to keep important data on encrypted | | | | firewall software suggested by latest version of |
| disks, there are a number of software programs that | | | | Windows, will help you to protect laptop against |
| helps to do it. The most well-know tools are PGP and | | | | spyware software. Don't forget to clear browser |
| TrueCrypt. The last is open source product and can | | | | history and cache from time to time, as it also might |
| be used for free. | | | | contain a valuable information about your traces |
| Second, if I delete some file I want it to be | | | | online. |
| irrecoverable, that's why I'm running file shredder | | | | Some other security measures, that might work. |
| which stays in background and wipes all files that I | | | | Flash drivers can be used now as a keys to your |
| delete. Also, as additional measure I managed to run | | | | laptop. For instance, you will not be able to log into |
| wipe free space in the end of every week. | | | | the Windows unless your flash drive is inserted. Well, |
| Third, password and login information. It is probably | | | | this is for sure, a kind of protection, but there are a |
| the most valuable one, so I prefer not to use auto fill | | | | number of ways to get information without starting |
| option in browser and type the passwords every | | | | Windows, so you need a real protection, then USB |
| time I need to log in, it's a simple rule and I don't | | | | flash drive key should contain not the password for a |
| waste a lot of time doing this. | | | | Windows login, but the key which is used to |
| So here are my tree rules, there are some minor | | | | encrypted the whole data on your hard disk. |
| ones. For instance, the probability that someone will | | | | But again, before using strong protection consider |
| steal your laptop is much lower that probability of | | | | checking the possibility of corruption of encrypted |
| data lost due to system crash, so it's really important | | | | volume. It's much more harder to recover corrupted |
| to do a backup every time you fill it's necessary. It's | | | | encrypted volume, than just a hard disk with |
| a good idea to do a backup every month or every | | | | non-encrypted FAT system. So, the main rule about |
| two weeks. | | | | security is to do enough to protect yourself and not |
| There are some kind of software, that will monitor | | | | to try to do more. |