Data Security
Is Your Data Safe?
With new data protection legislation expected to come into force on 6th April 2010, protecting your data and your client’s data should now be of even greater concern for all businesses. Losing a laptop, portable hard drive or USB key containing customer data could lead to fines of up to £500,000 in the most serious cases and the bad publicity could also damage your businesses reputation. It is hoped that this move will encourage companies to comply more closely with the Data Protection Act and to prevent the high profile data losses, such as the Ministry of Defence and the DVLA, which have hit the headlines in recent years.
According to a recent study conducted by Dell, business travellers lose more than 15,500 laptops per week in the EU, with 43% of UK respondents not backing up their data and only 12% using any kind of disk encryption. So this is an issue which impacts on all businesses and could have serious implications if it happened to you.
Is your laptop backed up?
If your laptop was lost or stolen, could you afford to lose the data it contains?
If you have a laptop, you need to ensure it is backed up regularly using a program such as Symantec System Recovery 2010. It can schedule regular automatic snapshots of your laptop and uses the same traffic light system as many other security products….as long as it’s green you know you’re ok. This snapshot can be saved onto an external hard drive or even to a remote ftp server and Symantec System Recovery 2010 can also encrypt the backup to ensure your data remains safe.
Is your data protected?
Check-Tek recommends that all laptops and portable media (external hard drives and USB Keys) are encrypted to the highest levels. Currently it is possible to encrypt your data either via hardware encryption or software encryption.
Hardware Encryption.
When purchasing a new laptop look for one with an encrypted hard drive, which usually come with fingerprint readers for further security. Dell and Lenovo both have laptops with encrypted hard drives.
When purchasing a USB memory key we recommend you choose one such as IronKey, which comes with hardware encryption.
Check-Tek can supply both laptops with built-in hardware encryption and Ironkey products.
Software Encryption.
There are many software encryption providers including SafeBoot and SafeGuard. For most businesses TrueCrypt is an excellent encryption software option, which is completely free and is distributed under the GNU software licence agreement.
TrueCrypt can be used to encrypt all hard drives and USB memory keys and we have included step by step guides below to do both. Before encrypting your data please ensure you understand our guide and that you have a backup and have tested your backup before proceeding.
For more information on any aspect of data security contact us via this link or call us on 01793 480022.
Check-Tek can help you to keep your customers data safe and avoid data protection fines of up to £500,000.
Encrypt your data for FREE with these useful guides:
