Wednesday 17 March 2010

Turn off your WiFi

Data protection and management specialists Credant Technologies has warned laptop users to turn off their WiFi signals before stowing theirlaptop in the boot of their car or stashing their laptop in the office cupboard or desk drawer, apparently out of sight of thieves. With BTOpenzone recently announcing it had passed the million WiFi access point mark in the UK and with cellular carriers boosting their coverage, WiFi use is expanding very rapidly

But this expansion is accompanied by an increasing availability of low-cost keyfob WiFi detectors, as well as quite sophisticated directional detectors, both of which can be used by thieves to detect the presence of an out of sight laptop. There may not be many of these detectors in the UK at present - but it is only a matter of time.

Credant suggest that the real focus of identity thieves is the company laptop, which, as well as being a saleable item in its own right, can also contain valuable company data that can potentially be sold to the highest bidder online.

And because many of the latest laptops have a set time - sometimes up to 30 minutes - before they go into sleep mode when the laptop lid is shut, it makes shopping centres in particular around 6pm on weekdays a prime source of notebook computers just waiting to be stolen.

That person waving their car keys around, ostensibly trying to find their car, may well be looking for cars emitting a strong WiFi signal.

You may not be able to totally prevent your laptop being stolen, but only switching on the WiFi when it is really needed and, of course, encrypting the data on the notebook drive, will go a long way to preventing your computer becoming just another statistic, and valuable data possibly finishing up in the hands of a competitor.

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