If the FBI can't protect laptops, who can?

Admit it. You snickered when you heard that the Federal Bureau of Investigation admitted it had "misplaced" more than 180 laptops during Senate hearings this week. At least one -- and possibly four -- contained classified information.

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I got a laugh too, but it was more out of relief. I lost a laptop last year. The FBI (news - web sites)'s admission means I have an excuse now. If highly trained FBI agents can't keep track of their laptops, how can my IT department expect me to fare any better?

The FBI's public announcement of its laptop loss is a wake-up call for IT managers everywhere. In 1999, more than 300,000 laptops were reported stolen, according to one insurance survey. The FBI itself reports that 57 percent of computer crime is linked to stolen laptops. Some of those laptops may have originated from your own organization.

You already have enough to worry about when it comes to protecting your Web presence. Wouldn't it be wise to make sure you have a lock on physical hardware and information stored on those devices?

Unfortunately, sometimes end users are such babies that IT managers are forced to do some parenting. Jody Patilla, a consultant at Atlanta-based Metases, says she has a client who audits its hardware religiously. Every piece of hardware, from disk drives to personal digital assistants, is tagged and tracked. And every six months, like clockwork, IT shows up, and employees are expected to cough up every single piece of equipment that's been tagged to their name. As an employer, if you loan end users your equipment, make sure they're taking care of it.

Encryption is key

Often, the information on laptops is much more valuable than the hardware itself. This is where technology like encryption comes into play. Some organizations have policies that keep end users from storing anything more than e-mail and PowerPoint slides on their laptops. Thing is, very few business travelers have the luxury of reading a novel or watching the in-flight movie during a flight. They've got work to do. Your end users are probably dialing into your corporate network or polishing off reports from the road.

New technologies, including Caveo Technology's Anti-Theft system, use a tiny motion detector that determines if a laptop has been carried beyond a user-defined perimeter. If a snatch and grab occurs, the key data on the hard drive is encrypted and can only be unlocked after the user enters a 16-digit access code.

The point is, laptops are stolen in airports, off of desks, even in public bathrooms. Make sure your end users understand they have to keep their machine with them at all times. And please, remind them not to encode their network passwords into their dialup software.

It may all be obvious but, hey, people who are not skilled FBI agents lose laptops every day. While a stolen laptop from your organization probably won't make the evening news, the information on it could.

What is your organization doing to protect laptops and the information on them? Contact Anne Chen at anne_chen@ziffdavis.com.

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