Secure laptop data from theft threat

[Richard Grossman]

I'm looking for a pointer to KB articles or sites with info on securing
Windows laptops against access to data after loss of the machine. The
security needs to be strong enough so that simply removing the hard
drive and mounting it as drive 2 on another computer does not allow
access to the data in the My Documents folder.

We're encrypting the My Documents folder and saving the keys to a
server, but I'd like to see if there's any more that needs to be done or
managed for this scenario.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

EFS should do it.
Just be sure to take appropriate precautions to keep from permanently
losing the data.

See this link, particularly the links at the bottom:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/encrypt.htm

 

[anonymous]

Use strong passwords to gain access to windows (min 8
characters and at least one Capital letter, at least one
lower case letter and characters) Also change the name of
the administrator account to something else (not "admin")
If it is really top secret stuff you have there....you
should use another method to authenticate windows, like
biometrics or a smartcard.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Securing Your Laptop
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=174137

Targus Security Accessories
http://www.targus.com/us/accessories_security.asp

TrackIT
http://www.trackitcorp.com/

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

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| I'm looking for a pointer to KB articles or sites with info on securing
| Windows laptops against access to data after loss of the machine. The
| security needs to be strong enough so that simply removing the hard
| drive and mounting it as drive 2 on another computer does not allow
| access to the data in the My Documents folder.
|
| We're encrypting the My Documents folder and saving the keys to a
| server, but I'd like to see if there's any more that needs to be done or
| managed for this scenario.
|

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

The password will do nothing other than delay a minute or two someone
who has unrestricted access to the computer.

 

[Colin Nash [MVP]]

Regardless of how you do authentication, someone could just pop the drive
into another system (or use a number of bootdisk utilities that ignore NTFS
permissions) and have full access. Encryption is the only way. Either use
EFS to secure specific folders or use some of the third-party apps that
encrypt the whole hard drive and requests a separate password before Windows
even starts up (there's one called SafeGuard Easy)

 

[Robert Gu [MSFT]]

I assume you are using EFS. Why do you want to save the keys to a server?

You can export the key and safe in a safe place. With Win2003 CA, you can
use Key Recovery Agent (not the Data Recovery Agent).

 

[Torgeir Bakken \(MVP\)]

I'm looking for a pointer to KB articles or sites with info on securing
Windows laptops against access to data after loss of the machine. The
security needs to be strong enough so that simply removing the hard
drive and mounting it as drive 2 on another computer does not allow
access to the data in the My Documents folder.

We're encrypting the My Documents folder and saving the keys to a
server, but I'd like to see if there's any more that needs to be done or
managed for this scenario.

Hi

SafeGuard Easy is an option (it is able to encrypt the
complete hard disk):

http://www.utimaco.com/indexmain.html

We are using this product for local hard disk encryption on all
laptops, and we are very satisfied with the product.