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Real Notebook SecurityPasswords are so 1990s. For foolproof data protection, you need uncrackable hardware under the hood.by Timothy Captain From September 2005 issue of LAPTOP magazine 
 For IT managers, mobility is both a blessing and a curse. Having workers who are productive out of the office helps the bottom line, but a company’s assets could easily be compromised by a single stolen system. In June, someone stole a laptop computer with the personal information of 5,800 former Eastman Kodak employees, including Social Security numbers, names, and birth dates. A Kodak spokesperson said the laptop was password protected, but any determined hacker could get around that obstacle within minutes.
Now that Wi-Fi is a standard feature in laptops, it has become all too easy for sniffers to infiltrate a corporate network by tunneling through someone else’s notebook that’s connected at a hotspot. Laptop vendors are now offering hardware-based options in addition to simple password protection on their business notebooks. According to Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst for the Enderle Group, security is the top priority for companies as the number of notebook deployments continues to rise. “With increasing theft/loss reports of laptops, coupled with the practice of using VPNs, the security of the mobile end points has never had a higher focus,” he said. “Companies that have been aggressive on notebook security technology are increasingly advantaged in government bids, and those same practices are now moving to general business.” What are your security options today? To see how notebook security technology is developing, we reached out to Dell, HP, Toshiba, and Lenovo (which recently purchased the PC business of IBM), as well as behind-the-scenes players like fingerprint reader manufacturer AuthenTec.
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