Sophos’ Naked Security has an excellent write-up on keeping safe data whilst travelling over the Christmas period (and in fact – when you’re travelling generally), covering fraudulent ticket purchasing, ticketing purchases via Craigslist and keeping your USB Pen Drive/Memory Sticks (etc) secure.
Some top tips from muggins (as that’s my normal industry)
- Keep your laptop/tablet computer/phone close and with you at all times and keep it in sight.
- Password the device (either at start-up or at log-on)
- Where possible, Encrypt the contents of your device. If your data is valuable (and trust me, passwords, user names are valuable), use all possible preventions
- Use appropriate anti-virus/anti-malware protection
- And make and maintain a good back-up…
For USB Pen Drives
- Keep it on a chain/lanyard and don’t loose the darn thing in the first place 😉
- Password and Encrypt your drives where possible.
- Don’t plug them into computers you know nothing about
- Avoid keeping personalised information on them
Oh and one little thing
- Your boarding pass is a mine of information. Take it with you when you leave the plane or destroy it appropriately… don’t leave it in the seat pocket!!!
With people taking so much information digitally with them these days, it’s important to remember that anything you have is a digital asset, and could be a pain to recover if you loose it. If it’s something more critical, take extra precautions.
For those of you who use cloud type services, take extra care – whilst your data is safe “in the cloud”, all it takes is a password reset – and you could be locked out of your own data
Lets be careful out there!
Sophos Naked Security:
http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/12/14/how-to-stay-safe-when-traveling-for-the-holidays