Confidential information easily leaked through laptops

The convenience when carrying makes the laptop easy to fall into the sights of curious people and thieves. Experts recommend users to encrypt information because more and more laptops are stolen or missed to forget.

One notable case is data about 26.5 million veterans and US Army Department of Veterans' personnel who were exposed because they saved their "wingless laptop" off the home of an employee of the agency. .

"The number of stolen laptops is shocking and strange that users don't use encryption to protect data ," Beth Givens, director of consumer research and education projects called Privacy Rights. Clearinghouse, said. " If the thief has some knowledge, they will understand that I have more than one computer ."

In many cases, employees brought the company's information out of the office with a laptop. However, they do not protect their safety and are hesitant to use encryption mechanisms such as password settings for machines and files. SANS Academy Director Alan Paller specializes in computer security issues, explaining that if they forget their password it will not open the file and these operations seem to slow their work.

This has caused computer manufacturers to pay attention and start integrating encryption into products. For example, Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system will make it easier for users to encrypt their data.

Companies with a large number of mobile employees are also starting to care about this. For example, the financial consulting firm Ernst & Young, with 30,000 laptops serving the company, is encrypting all the content on the device after the news of their 243,000 customers contained in a stolen laptop, Include name, address, credit card information.

Thuy Huong