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10 things you can do to protect your data

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Thanks,
The TechRepublic Content Team

Hi,

I am studying the networking and trying to develop a network for my own organisation who head office in London and sub office in manchester. I would like to build a network for the organisation. Most of employee in manchester are doing job as a mobile user and would like to link and access the organisation any where in the country and world. Organisatin would also like to protect its critical data secure form internet user or would like to prevent the violation of data with in organisation and from internet traffic b/c most of customer/partner organisations have access to the organisation. so please design and guide me in this regard. I hope will gain some help in this regard.

Thanks,

Muhammad Irfan Aslam Cheema

The DRM suggested in the list is apparently Windows only. Why would you recommend, after so many other good suggestions, that you attempt to force all of the people with whom you will be communicating to use Microsoft *and* Internet Explorer *and* have the "right" plugins?

If you don't want someone to be able to save information you send them, then why are you sending it to them? If you don't want them to be able to share it with others, why do you want them to have it?

If anyone ever requires me to use Internet Explorer (or Windows, for that matter), they will lose my business personally and likely our business corprately.

If you feel you truely must use DRM for some reason, I would suggest first looking at (a) an NDA, (b) signed files, or (c) what part of your corprate philosophy allows (or even suggests) that you "be evil" toward your customers/clients/contacts.

First, any attempt to be comprehensive is doomed to failure from the start. So we tend to provide examples from our experience, expecting that the reader will have either the professional skills, or the willingness to learn, that will allow them to apply the CONCEPTS expressed in the article to their own situation.

Second, out here in the real world, many of us have to collaborate with others who are, shall we say, less diligent in their computer hygiene (and sometimes personal hygiene, but that's another story) than one might prefer. One attempt to integrate desynchronized edits on on collaborative document created out of 3 offices spread across the U.S., and you'll start locking down your sh**, too.

Love the article... but I remember, from about 25 years ago, and various "interesting" recoveries I've been through what I first heard of as the

"First Law of Data Processing"

a) Take a copy
b) Take another copy
c) Take another copy and put it somewhere else...

- to which I'd add (seen in go wrong twice in the real world... )...

d) and test if you can recover from those backups!!


Grandmothers and eggs I know...

Yours aye

Phillip

This list is very good and up to date, however it does not include any tips on laptop security, which has been our biggest problem lately. The largest breach known to date happened because of poor laptop security and it seems to be a popular trend around the country these days.

Storing information on a laptop is very dangerous because once the laptop is stolen it is very difficult to track and the thief has all the time in the world to crack the passwords protecting the data.

Remote laptop security allows the user to encrypt data on a laptop such that if the laptop is stonen, they can completely deny access to the data from a different computer. In the time it takes for someone to crack the laptop's password, the user could have already completely denied access to the data, making the laptop completely worthless.
http://www.essentialsecurity.com/howitworks_laptop.htm

Lemme add to 9:

Use a VPN, SSL, or SSH ALWAYS. There is no reason to send sensitive data in plain text (even if the data itself is encrypted).

This ensures both confidentiality and integrity.

Great list though...My students will have to take a read!

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