Top Ten Tips to Safeguard Your Laptop and Data During Travel

December 2, 2008 from itbusiness.ca – Statistics show that one laptop is stolen every 53 seconds. The prime opportunity for thieves to do their best work is during travel. 12,000 laptops per week are lost at U.S. airports. Many of those are truly lost rather than stolen, and honest people try to return them to airport lost-and-found facilities. A full 70% of lost laptops are never reclaimed or returned to their rightful owners.

Increased security measures at airports (yes, be ready to pull out your notebook from your carry-on and put it in a separate bin on the conveyer belt for x-raying) have led to rushed travelers being so anxious to make their flights on time that they forget the computer back at security. 40% of laptops are lost at security checkpoints, and a further 23% are lost at departure gates, as travelers often have their computers open while waiting for flights, and then get flustered once the flight is called for boarding.

It’s not just the inconvenience and cost of losing and having to replace a missing laptop that causes consternation. It’s the data. That can be costlier and cause more headaches than the actual hardware.

To prevent this situation, Absolute Software offers up 10 tips:

1. Back up data before the trip
2. Use laptop recovery and data protection software to retrieve data and possibly track down the computer (and prosecute the thieves)
3. Don’t check your laptop (Remember the Toshiba commercial? “I checked my notebook!”)
4. Clearly label your machine (You tie a ribbon or something around your checked luggage to make it stand out at the baggage claim, don’t you?)
5. Put your notebook in a hotel safe
6. If using a public computer, be aware of keyboard loggers and trackers
7. Do not log onto unsecured wireless networks
8. Do not access banking or financial records while traveling, especially on public wireless networks
9. Deselect “remember me” when surfing the net, even on your own machine
10. Clear your history and cache after surfing, even on your own machine

180 View (written by Esther Friedberg Karp): Having just returned from a trip overseas, I can appreciate these tips. One trick I use is to take a mental count of all the separate items (bags, purse, security bins holding jackets and shoes) that go on the conveyer belt before I go through the metal detector. I then take another mental count as I collect all my things to make sure I do have everything. Another tip is to have a separate (brightly-coloured) sleeve for your notebook that goes inside the carry-on luggage. Then, when using the notebook at the departure gate, I place the obviously empty sleeve on top of my carry-on so that I get a mental cue that the computer must be returned to it and replaced inside the carry-on.