- Let's round out this lesson
with a little laptop security,
and we're talking more
of the physical security of the laptop.
We'll get more into security
as we get into the 220-902 course.
That's a separate course altogether.
So because of the threat of theft,
you should really consider physical security methods
for your laptop.
It costs you a lot of money.
It might have very important data
or pictures or music that's important to you as well,
so you wanna be real careful with that.
And some examples you can use physical locks or cable locks.
If you're worried about your laptop being stolen,
consider physical security,
an actual locking cable for your laptop
similar to a locking cable for a bicycle.
You can use these on just about any laptop,
and there's upgrades that you can get
for these laptops from all different manufacturers.
So consider security cable locks for your laptop.
The thing is a lot of laptops are stolen
when a person just walks away for a minute,
and they're gone.
So you can use a physical lock,
and I'll show an example here.
Here's an example of a Toshiba lock,
and this connects to the special little connector
on the laptop,
which I'll show in a second if you have one,
and basically it has a four-digit pin code
that you can select here,
but there's 10,000 combinations.
So it's gonna be hard for somebody to figure this out.
And this button releases this,
but only if the right code is on there.
So you set your code, connect it, lock it,
and then change the code.
You know, move those rollers, and, you know,
this way nobody's gonna be able to get into that.
But the only way for this to work
is if it's cabled properly.
You could loop this to something,
but really the proper way to use this,
it's kind of like a giant lanyard.
The proper way to use this is
to run this around the leg of a desk
or around something that's immobile,
and then loop this through here,
and then connect this to the laptop security port.
So that's the proper way to do that,
'cause, you know, nobody's gonna be able
to cut through these.
You're not gonna be able to use a cutter basically
to get through this.
And if this is just looped over something,
it's easy to remove it.
You wanna loop it in twice basically if possible
or around something that doesn't move,
and always run this through the eyelet here
before you connect this to the laptop.
You know, run this around the leg of a desk once or twice,
then run this through that,
then connect that to the laptop.
The way that most people get these
is they'll smash him with a hammer right here,
and that may or may not work.
This is a pretty good device for that.
Let's show the connection on the laptop real quick.
So here's the port on the laptop.
This is a real close up of this.
This is just a basic little connector,
and there's really not much to it.
You connect the cable lock right into here,
and it'll click right into place.
Again, only after you've run the cable,
and tethered the lock through the eyelet.
But you'll see a connector like this,
usually on the corner towards the back of the laptop,
and you'll see a little icon here.
It's the locking security icon.
So you'll know what that is.
And Toshiba uses, you know,
you wanna go with the manufacturer,
Toshiba uses their own type of cable.
All the manufacturers like HP and so on,
they'll have their own cable for that.
So make sure you run that cable lock.
That's a great way of securing that laptop.
So another possibility is a locking case or a bag.
You know, you don't wanna get a real expensive looking bag
also for your laptop.
Keep it simple,
but you could use something that locks,
so that way it would be harder to get open.
But really it's the look of the bag.
that's gonna help you with that.
And going beyond this,
consider the following safeguards.
USB biometric devices.
These, when you install them,
they need your fingerprint
in order to allow access to the system.
So this is a real nice feature,
and here's an example of one.
Here's a fingerprint reader, connects via USB.
And if we look at the tech specs on that,
you can do 2.0 ports.
You don't even need a 3.0 port with this.
And one of the things you wanna check is the type of sensor.
This is a decent sensor,
and also the resolution that's being used.
You want the resolution to be decent,
a pretty high level around five, 600 DPI.
Otherwise it could be faked pretty easily.
Now one of the problems with these
is if someone steals the whole package,
your fingerprint is probably on the laptop itself somewhere,
either on the touch pad or just on the laptop's plastic,
and a person could lift that pretty easily.
So you can go even farther beyond this.
First of all, you can get into biosecurity,
your UEFI or your BIOS.
And some laptops offer chassis intrusion protection,
and all UEFI and BIOS programs have password security.
So set an admin password on the BIOS
and for protection for your data,
set a power on password or a user password.
This way, you know,
someone can't even get into the Windows.
They gotta get past the BIOS password first,
and that's if they can get past your USB biometric device
and your physical lock and blah blah.
Also a lot of computers, especially laptops,
are coming with LoJack.
You can have LoJack running on within your UEFI BIOS.
So if someone steals it
and you've paid for the service,
you can, you know, locate that guy.
You could also have GPS running on the on the laptop.
And moving beyond that into Windows,
you may want to encrypt your data.
You might want to use EFS in Windows to encrypt the data.
You can encrypt individual files, you know.
For example, if you have passwords in a file or taxes or,
you know, any personal identifying information, PII,
encrypt those, right click 'em, encrypt them
and that'll show the file name in green.
Or if you have one of the more advanced editions of Windows,
you can do full disc encryption.
And you could do that with BitLocker,
and you wanna make sure there's a TPM,
a trusted platform module chip on the computer,
or use a USB device that has the proper key.
Windows passwords,
make sure you have a strong complex password on the device.
And you may wanna look into remote wipe programs.
And as I mentioned before, GPS,
so you could track the device.
And if it is stolen,
you could initiate a remote wipe from your PC
or from another system just to wipe out the whole laptop,
so that the person cannot get your data
or most likely cannot get the data.
So a lot of safeguards there,
but really you don't wanna lose the laptop.
So you wanna think
about basic physical security precautions.
You know, never leave your laptop sitting around,
always lock the door to your office.
Very often, laptops are stolen in the office,
and quite often for people that you work with.
Can you believe that?
It happens, it's true.
Or someone who is, you know, doing social engineering,
and acting as a particular service person,
but is actually there to grab laptops.
So always lock up your laptop,
lock your door, use the cable lock.
Use passwords in Windows,
and then have your screensaver set to require the password,
if you're doing it that way.
Or if the screen is set to turn off,
make sure it's set to lock.
You want the system to lock if the display turns off,
so that the password's required.
The best thing to do whenever you leave your system,
hit the Windows and L key.
Just Windows L, Windows L.
Keep thinking that way and press that right when you leave,
so that it automatically goes to the locked mode
and you have to put your password in there.
There's various policies and programs out there,
stop programs that companies have.
If a company uses a mobile device management system,
they might be able to just stop all access
to your laptop remotely.
Your administrator might be able to do that.
So make sure your computer's running that or, you know,
check in, check with your organization
to see if it actually has that policy
for those types of programs.
If you bring your laptop in the car,
always put it in the trunk,
make sure it's covered.
Make sure the bag is covered.
Use a basic bag, you know,
stow your laptop in just a very basic looking bag.
You might even use a backpack.
They make backpacks that can store laptops
with nice cushioning,
but doesn't even really look like a laptop bag.
Or it's a dual feature bag where it's a backpack,
and, you know, you can put clothes in there
or whatever and your laptop.
So look into that type of thing as well.
And also it should lock,
but a lock that is not conspicuous.
You know, you want it to be inconspicuous.
You don't want people to be like, oh wow,
look at that amazing lock on that bag.
But lock the bag and try to think about
all this basic physical security precaution,
'cause you definitely don't wanna lose that laptop.
So there's a little bit about laptop security,
and that rounds out the lesson
and I'll see you at the next lesson.