Posts Tagged ‘airport’

We talk a lot about travel and laptop security here on the blog, but one thing we’ve never discussed is safe in-flight laptop practices. And by “safe” I refer to not just data security, but to keeping your laptop from being damaged in any way during flight.

Mary Jo Manzanares, a flight attendant and travel writer, has put together a list of in-flight laptop precautions that will make you think twice about when – and how – you use your laptop on the airplane. The tips include:

• Don’t store your laptop in an overhead bin if it’s in a soft case
• Don’t angle your laptop into the aisle
• Close and put away your laptop during service periods, so there’s no risk of a beverage tipping onto it (yours or anyone elses)
• Keep your laptop within your own seat space
• If you leave your seat, close your laptop and put it away or leave it on the seat, not the tray

Other blog posts on travel & laptop security you may wish to read include:

• Tips for Laptops and International Travel
• Airport Laptop Security Tips
• Airport Security-Friendly Laptop Bags
• Airports a threat to laptop security
• Absolute Recovers Laptop After Flight Attendant Loses It En Route

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PC World has put together a series of tips about traveling abroad with your laptop. The tips are more targeted to regular travelers than business travelers and are quite useful.

Tips for your Laptop and International Travel:

• If your hotel doesn’t have ethernet or Wi-Fi, a local cafe will. Internet connections won’t be an issue!
• Customs may search your laptop as you bring it into this other country – be sure your hard drive doesn’t have anything that it shouldn’t (this includes private information as well as information that could be considered espionage and pornography)
• You may be required to decrypt any encrypted files for customs. Be prepared to do this.
• Make a back-up of all your data before you leave the country
• If you expect you’ll need any ‘private’ data while abroad, you can store it online in a secure location accessible by FTP or other secure means. You can thus download it once you’ve passed customs.
• If your laptop is new, take receipts – you don’t want your local customs charging you when you return, thinking you bought it abroad!
• Don’t forget to take a voltage adapter on your laptop, as well as preparing a power plug adapter

Don’t forget to check our past blog posts about Laptops in Airports here, here and here. And be sure to beef up the security of your laptop before you go with LoJack for Laptops or Computrace.

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Absolute Software recently attended the Infosec conference, and Bill Pound, VP international corporate development at Absolute, has an article out this week in ComputerWeekly about beating the airport data theft threat. Whether you’re a regular business traveler or gearing up for that big summer trip, Bill offers some great tips to keep in mind.

Airports are a prime location for the loss or theft of laptops; London’s Heathrow airport has up to 900 devices going missing per week, for example. Though some of these laptops may be password-protected or encrypted, data security concerns still exist. And with good reason – the data could be worth far more than the lost device.

Bill offers several pieces of advice, from laptop tracking software such as Computrace to beefing up security policies so that employees understand how to protect their devices against loss or theft. Basic airport security precautions include: not checking your laptop as luggage, using an inconspicuous bag, always watching your bag, adding identification to your bag, and being extra wary when going through security checkpoints. You can read more here.

Some other great reading for you:

• PCI DSS compliance: You can’t just check the boxes
• Survey: 37% of employees would become insiders given the right incentive
• Nine steps to halt data breaches

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The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has changed its policies (as of August 16) to allow for certain types of laptop bags to go through the security scanner with the laptop inside. No need to take out the laptop – a process that takes time and risks the laptop being accidentally dropped or stolen.

There are several new laptop bags that meet the TSA criteria of:

• Designated laptop-only section
• Laptop section completely unfolds to lay flat on x-ray belt
• No metal snaps, zippers or buckles around the laptop section
• No pockets around the laptop section
• Nothing packed in the laptop-only section other than the laptop

Computerworld has put together a good list of the laptop bags available already to meet these new specs. The laptop bags fall into 3 types:

1. Butterfly-style to open flat: one side the laptop, the other side storage
2. Double- or triple-compartment bags that unfold (like a garment bag)
3. Notebook sleeves (many existing on the market)

The bags that have been manufactured fall into many categories – from standard shoulder bags to wheeled bags to folded-backpacks. There’s probably one to fit your preference.

Having one of these bags will not guarantee that you won’t have to remove your laptop – if the security scan doesn’t give a clear enough picture of your laptop, you will have to take it out.