US IT PROFESSSIONAL DISCUSSES PROTECTING COMPUTERS AGAINST THEFT Protecting Against Computer Theft In Vista (Part I) ~ IT Professionals

When securing our computers, we focus a lot of our attention on configuring a firewall and setting permissions. However, many people overlook the possibility of computer theft and forget to take precautions against this type of attack. Yet, once a malicious user steals your computer, they can move the hard drive into another computer and gain access to all your data.

Microsoft has recognized that its customers must be able to protect their sensitive data residing on client computers in the event of theft. In response to this, Microsoft has included four technologies in Vista that are specifically designed to protect against data theft.

These technologies include:

• Rights Management Service (RMS)
• Bitlocker Drive Encryption
• Encrypting File System
• Device Control

Rights Management Service
Vista includes a Rights Management Service client. RMS is designed to protect against data theft by encrypting information, such as Word documents and e-mail, so only those authorized can access it.

This technology is more complex to implement than the other technologies listed above because of the requirements:

• RMS server - Windows Rights Management Services for Windows Server 2003
• RMS client
• RMS platform or application

In the next installment of this article, we’ll look more closely at the Bitlocker Drive Encryption. This is a technology that does not have as many requirements as RMS and is something that most users can implement.