Security Advise – External Drives

Many people habitually leave their thumb drives, external USB drives and other external drives attached to their computer all the time.  This is not a good idea.  Here’s why…

Bad guys of all kinds attempt to access remote computers – including yours! – and any content they may find useful upon them.  Any computer attached to the Internet is a target.

The bad guys’ skills range from not-very-much to professional, well trained, experience hackers who know more about computers than just about everyone else on the planet.  However, no matter how skilled they are, they cannot access a disk that is not connected to a computer.

Think about what is on your mobile drives (thumb drives, USB drives, SD cards, etc).  Is the data on there private information?  Is it embarrassing?  Is it financial in nature?  Maybe it’s proprietary information, or there could be lots of personal information on all the employees of the company for whom you work.

Whatever it is, does it really need to be attached to your computer all the time, even when you are out of the office and aren’t actually using your computer?  All you’re really doing is giving the bad guys time to figure out a way to get at your data.

Think about it, and the possible consequences…

–
Dennis Strain
Enclave Managed Networks
Box 365, Smithers, BC, Canada V0J 2N0

dstrain@bcenclave.ca
877-877-8793 toll free phone & fax

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