We’ve heard this story before: an employee leaves a laptop in their car and it gets stolen. In January 2018, 43,000 patients had their personal medical history exposed in this manner.¹ In fact, stolen physical devices containing confidential data were the cause of over a million records leaked in 2017 alone. A recent article in The Mercury News highlights an organized crime group focused on laptop theft from vehicles.³ Thousands of stolen laptops and tablets were recovered in a massive Bay Area car burglary scheme.

Here are some security awareness tips to share with employees on two of the largest security risk to the business.

Keeping Your Devices Secure When Traveling

• Do not pack laptops or tablets in checked luggage unless required to do so by airline security regulations. Devices can easily be stolen from your checked luggage.
• Remember to retrieve devices at TSA checkpoints. Double-check that you have all of your belongings before walking away from the TSA checkpoint.
• Never leave bags or devices unattended in the airport gate area. Don’t think you can quickly go to the restroom or buy something and leave your items unattended. Someone could easily watch you walk away and grab your items.
• When on the plane, secure your devices. Phones, tablets, and laptops can easily be stolen from the overhead bins or from your seat or seat pocket when you use the restroom.
• Before you leave the aircraft; double-check your seat area and seat pocket to make sure you did not leave any devices behind. Every year, millions of devices are left behind on planes and stolen or never recovered.
• Never leave your computer bag or laptop unattended in a vehicle. Thefts from vehicles are one of the most common ways laptops are lost. If you are moving a computer bag to the trunk of your vehicle, do not do this in the same area where you plan to park. Criminals sit in parking lots watching specifically for this kind of activity.
• Whenever possible, lock your devices in the hotel safe when you are not in the room.
• Each time you leave your hotel room, remember to pull the door closed and check to make sure it has locked. Hotel thieves walk down the halls pushing on doors to find doors that are not properly locked.

Reducing the Risk of Using Public and Free Wi-Fi

Hackers can easily set up fake Wi-Fi networks that look like the legitimate local network for coffee shops, restaurants, hospitals, shopping malls, libraries, and other public locations you visit. As cyber-crooks turn to cryptocurrency mining to monetize their hacking, we are starting to see Wi-Fi hotspot hacking to install crypto-miner malware on devices of unsuspecting users. Never assume your devices are safe, even at your local Starbucks.⁴