When Does Data Cost £150k

A police authority was fined £150,000 this week after a flash drive was stolen with data on it from an officer's home.  To make matters worse It contained details about more than 1000 people with links to serious crime investigations.  In this day and age we have more information about us on various forms of electronic devices, do we really care about what people see.

Last year, an internet security company bought 57 USB keys at a lost property auction containing a total of 4,400 files.

They found:

• Nearly 3/4 of the keys had one or more malware infections.
• Many of the USB keys contained personal and work-related files.
• Not a single one of the 4400 files was encrypted.

So, how do you protect yourself from leaking data on USB keys which get lost or stolen?

Or on keys which are transferred between users, departments and even companies?

Or on keys that you are retiring from active service, perhaps because they're no longer fast, reliable or capacious enough?

One answer: only ever write encrypted data to your USB keys.

That makes them just so much meaningless garbage to anyone without the decryption key.

There are free encryption programs out there, here are just a few;

TrueCrypt - When you run the TrueCrypt installation file it offers to install or just extract the files. The latter choice gives you access to TrueCrypt.exe, which is all you need to operate TrueCrypt in traveler mode. If you have access to another computer where you can install TrueCrypt, you can use the "Traveler Disk Setup..." tool to create self contained secure volumes.

FreeOTFE - Installation is not required for using FreeOTFE, but you do need Administrator priviledges in your account to run it in portable mode.

FreeOTFE Explorer is a simpler companion to FreeOTFE. It does not require administrative rights.You can create encrypted volumes with FreeOTFE Explorer, or use it to open encrypted volumes created by FreeOTFE. 

Try each of these programs to see which one you like using a small flash drive if you have one.

If you have any data that you do not want anyone to see, encrypt it.

www.hcrepairs.com

Virus Software Installed But Useless!

"I don't know how I got a virus, I have a virus checker installed".  Upon inspection that is true, the customer did have the software installed but with a few problems which rendered it useless.

The common issues I find is that people are still using the trial software that came with the machine but have left the subscription to run out.  Most anti virus software would not work once this happens, after all these companies will not give you anything for nothing.

If you do want to renew the subscription of the software because you like it then don't just click the renew subscription button.  You would get a better deal shopping around or just remove the software and try free anti virus software.

There is also a selection of people who have anti virus software installed but don't update it.  They take the time to download for example AVG 2009 then leave it the same.  

Once all these have been sorted and you have an anti virus program that works, free or paid then set the machine to perform a scan at 2am in the morning.  After all everyone's machines are on at the time aren't they....................oh hang on.

It would be advisable to set the scan when the machine is on so it can at least go through the scan.  Most software allows you to either set it on certain days in the week or just weekly.  If you set it every day then it may be on during the time allocated.

www.hcrepairs.com