TEXAS STOLEN COMPUTERS AND ID THEFT News 8 Austin | 24 Hour Local News | HEADLINES | Stolen laptops and ID theft:

Stolen laptops and ID theft
5/11/2007 12:40 PM
By: Adam Balkin

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It's in the news so often these days it seems to be reaching almost epidemic levels. Laptop computers, with sensitive information on them, possibly your sensitive information, stolen -- leaving that information in God knows whose hands.

“There's definitely a market for stolen, personal information unfortunately, a huge rise in identity theft, so it's a great concern,” John Livingston of LoJack for Laptops said.

LoJack for Laptops is one of a few security solutions that will track stolen notebooks and even allow you to remotely destroy data as soon as that computer accesses the Internet.

But before it even gets to that point, there are some basic tips on how not to fall victim in the first place.

“The number one thing you want to do is use visual deterrents, so locks and cables are good. So, you can bolt your computer down to a desk, it's less likely to walk off. You want to make sure you've backed up all the data, so in the event you lose your laptop you still have your data. Encryption is important, firewalls are important, anti-virus is important. Also, make sure you never leave your laptop unattended. If you're in the airport, make sure to take it with you,” Livingston said.

And the same goes for portable devices you may use to share information from computer to computer. Make sure you encrypt things like portable USB thumb drives or external hard drives. And, if you're going to store critical information on CDs or DVDs, and you eventually plan on throwing them away, make sure you properly destroy these.

If you don't trust your own destructive capabilities, there are several tools that either poke holes, literally burn, or just scratch discs enough to render them useless.

“Each disc has a few different layers in it, and once you hit the optical layer it makes it unrecordable, unreadable, unwritable, anything,” Christine Burgner of Disc Eraser said. “So if you put it in a CD player, DVD player or laptop, it just won't read it anymore; the information is gone.”

And, as always, for anything you do encrypt, make sure your password is something complex enough so that even anyone who might know you well, from good friends to co-workers, won't be able to figure it out.