About 8 years ago I was stood on Reading Station watching my laptop leave on the train. I of course had just left it on the said train and despite instant action to try and recover it I could not and it was lost never to be seen again.
So I had no laptop. Being an IT professional this caused me little real problem as I had a backup and I had insurance so within a couple of days I was back to normal and the only real impact was a little inconvenience.
These days we not only rely on our mobile devices we carry a lot of data on them, inevitably from time to time we lose them or they get stolen. Therefore we must be prepared for this when it happens. I hope that by now most people understand the absolute requirements for backups and for insurance and these are simple to deploy and like me you can be up and running in no time at all. Unfortunately there is a third issue, the data. Now the data on my laptop at the time was of little use to anybody and it was password protected so it did have some basis security but what if you have critical data or personal data, data you would not want other people or businesses seeing? Well that's a different matter. Passwords can be hacked pretty easily, what you need is encryption.
We have all heard the stories of government officials leaving sensitive information on memory sticks and laptops and it is lost "in the clear". You would think therefore that if The Government and the Secret Service cannot get it right then it must a difficult problem. This is just not true. If you have sensitive information on a mobile device it can be simple and cheap to protect it.
Most (35%) of all data security breaches come about via the loss of a Laptop or other mobile device. Source "2006 Survey: Cost of a Data Breach" by the Ponemon Institute October 2006
There are products available that will encrypt your whole disk so that no files can be accessed without knowing your key. You can protect memory sticks and PDA's or Phones as well and it's all simple stuff. For some of you just imagine the cost of losing your data and it falling into the wrong hands.
The cost of Data loss can be measured in three ways:-
- Fines imposed by Industry regulatory bodies
- Opportunity costs suffered due to lost intellectual property
- Loss of future business if customers find out about the loss through the press or suffer personally due to actions of unscrupulous thieves
If you decide that your organisation or one that you know needs to protect their data via encryption there are some decisions that need to be made on how things are configured and the final design be it simple or complex with central management will depend on the needs of the business. You should work with a solution provider to ensure you make the correct decision and to ensure that your encryption implementation is hassle free throughout.
Have a profitable week!
Julian Lewis
Managing Director - 07768488666