Bitlocker ; Do I need it If?

[Guest]

Hi,

I bought 2 copies of Vista Ultimate(I always like the best of the OS's, &
despite the naysayers, calling it WinME2<their problem< I've been enjoying
my Vista OS's,(without any problems so far 3 t this is the months in on one,
& 1 month on the other)

The one for my Dell Inspiron 6400, is the one I'm asking,
if I need Bitlocker running on it.
It has Lojack, plus a screen that requires a password, right after POST,
or it shuts down. It also has a HDD Password, (which I have activated)

However, this is the laptop I run my business from, and has alot of sensitive
materials(contacts, etc), work product, and contains my corporate strategies,
(you get the picture)

I need to know, if I should put Bitlocker on it as well, if I do, I need to
know how, since the motherboard, doesn't have the TPM hardware, my Tower PC
does.

It's an XP Pro SP2 & Vista Ultimate Edition Dual-boot.
I already have Bitlocker active on, as it doesn't lojack, or a integrated
security screen like the Dell. I keep all the security provided by ASUS, as
well.

Thanks for any help in this matter,

PCfixinman

 

[Guest]

One other thing.

I don't use those stupid BIOS passwords, since it's well known that taking
the CMOS battery out, will reset it, and even if that didn't work 100%,
programs can get a hacker past it!

I just want to make sure the HDD drive on my notebook, (should the worst
happen)
is safe from those that would have possible access of my data.


TIA

pcfixinman

 

[P. Di Stolfo]

Hello,

here's a guide to install BitLocker without having a TPM: http://www.windowsblog.net/2007/06/08/windows-vista-use-bitlocker-drive-encryption-without-tpm-chip/
I, for instance, don't have a TPM chip, so I have to use my USB flash drive which I plug in on bootup.

Greetings,
P. Di Stolfo

 

[Steve Riley [MSFT]]

The answer to "Do I need BitLocker?" is the same as the answer to "Do I need
protection from the threats BitLocker mitigates?"

According to the 2006 Australian Computer Crime and Security Survey
(http://www.auscert.org.au/crimesurvey), laptop theft is the most prevalent
attack during the last four years. Such theft is also, more than any other
attack, a source of financial loss. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse
maintains a list of data breaches
(http://www.privacyrights.org/ar/ChronDataBreaches.htm) starting from
January 2005; as of 9 July 2007, the list is 158,051,696 records long.

Laptops (and, increasingly, smartphones) expose data to risks not previously
encountered -- because the data is now mobile. We can no longer rely on the
physical weight of desktop machines to act as somewhat of a barrier against
theft. Nor can we rely on network access controls, because data sitting on a
laptop's hard drive isn't subject to the ACLs on a file server. Because
we've pretty much lost the ability to use possession controls
(gates/guards/guns, ACLs) we must now plan for and deploy confidentiality
controls (encryption) instead.

Do you need BitLocker? Well, do you carry data that's interesting to a bad
guy, that would cost you (time, money, reputation) if compromised or stolen?
If so, then yeah, you need BitLocker.

Steve Riley
(e-mail address removed)
http://blogs.technet.com/steriley


One other thing.

I don't use those stupid BIOS passwords, since it's well known that taking
the CMOS battery out, will reset it, and even if that didn't work 100%,
programs can get a hacker past it!

I just want to make sure the HDD drive on my notebook, (should the worst
happen)
is safe from those that would have possible access of my data.


TIA

pcfixinman