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Are You Safe?
What You Need To Know To Protect Yourself And Your Business

By John Tinholt
© Phillip Jen

With the advent of the computer and Internet age, computer security and Internet safety has suddenly become a major concern for all users. No longer is your information safe and secure behind locked doors or safe deposit boxes. Information can be stolen from within your computer system using just a few simple commands and unscrupulous people can invade your homes or businesses via the Internet.

Data security - personal computers
Personal computers, commercially available operating systems (that would be Windows!) and e-mail contain no effective protection against unauthorized access or theft of your confidential data stored on data disks and hard drives. A clever (read devious) hacker can read and steal your confidential data while you check your e-mail or while your are away from your computer. Enormous financial losses through theft of proprietary information have been reported and are increasing at intolerable rates. More alarmingly, countless undetected incidences of theft are continuously occurring and only detected when it is too late.

How then can you protect your data while at lunch, on vacation or business trips? Answers to these questions are many and involve the most rudimentary solutions to high tech gadgetry. The following are 9 ways to protect yourself going from the least practical to best option:

• Locking your computer within theft secure cabinets or closets is an effective way of safeguarding your data (I did say rudimentary!). This method is an option only if you have the energy, time and a safe and secure place to store your computer.
• You may have the option of removing your hard drive from your personal computer and taking it with you. This method is very effective in preventing data theft but is laborious and also places you in danger of accidentally loosing your most prized information. Further, in today's on- the-go business environment, not many people are willing to sacrifice their time and energy to remove the hard drive every time they step away from their desks.
• You may also take your computer with you. However, similar to the method of removing your hard drive your may run the risk of loosing your computer.
• You may also place all your sensitive files onto a floppy disk or other data storage device (e.g. Jaz, Zip etc.) and take it with you. Again, this method is effective but is also laborious and is not immune to simple human error such as loosing your disks.
  
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