I just received my hardcopy of NetworkWorld, a tech trade mag. On the first page I saw something startling (No, it wasn't that EMC was laying off 2,400 people).
Here is the excerpt:
"There Goes Some More Data More than 35 million data records were breached in 2008 in the United States, a figure that underscores the continuing difficulties in secruing information, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. The majority of the lost data was neither encrypted nor password-protected."
About 2 years ago, I remember calling one of my clients to notify him of some minor scheduling changes. When I got him, he was distraught because he had lost his handheld device... actually, someone took it.
Yes, it was stolen.
When I called him, he was in the process of notifying all of his clients of the theft.
It takes only 30 seconds to snatch a laptop and a whole lot less time to palm a USB memory stick. So if you run a small business and have several sales reps out in the field with laptops, make sure that your established procedures includes password protection and data encryption.
And if you are a sales rep, lock down your laptop or you may find that your competition has access to your single greatest asset: your client list.
Labels: Data Storage, Laptop, SalesITTechBlog, Security