Stolen laptops go way beyond the physical hardware
A couple of my friends had their cars broken into at a networking event I attended today. This hit a little close to home for me for a couple of reasons. For one, one of the cars broken into was parked right next to me. I can't help but wonder if my car would have been next on the list if the thugs had just a little more time.
Another reason was that my car was broken into about a year ago. I was fortunate at that time to have left nothing of value in the car, something I practice regularly now when I travel with my gadgets and electronics. I wish I could say the victims today were equally as fortunate but one of them had his laptop stolen from the front seat of his car.
Protect yourself
I'm writing about this today, not necessarily to tell you stories about people's luck but more to caution others who don't think twice about leaving gadgets in plain sight in their car. I can't tell you the number of times I walk past cars in parking lots and see a portable GPS mounted on the dashboard of a car. Nobody deserves to have their car broken into but it doesn't help any when you announce what you have in your car.
I also want to stress how important it is to have a backup of the data on your laptop at all times. If you can't remember to do scheduled backups, sign up for a service like Carbonite and let it do the work for you. When your laptop is stolen, the physical hardware is the least of your problems. Stop and think right now what data is your laptop and whether or not you could replace it if it was stolen.
Along those same lines, think about how sensitive your data on your laptop is. Do you have customer account numbers on your laptop? Social security numbers? Credit card information? It might be time to look into encyrption software (a topic too large to cover in this blog post) for your laptop to make sure your data is unreadable if your laptop is ever stolen. I know, after today's event, this is now a higher priority for me with my own laptop.
Has anyone else ever had a laptop or other technical gadget stolen? Leave a comment below and tell me your story.
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