HIPAA Security: Give gift of security

 A. Many of us are traveling over the holiday season and taking our laptops and devices with us. And sometimes those devices don't make it home. In a single month in 2015 the TSA at Los Angeles International Airport found 154 laptops, 98 cell phones and 18 iPads.

When faced with the loss of a laptop people often think their biggest challenge is restoring data, but that's just part of the problem. It's also important to protect the data on the lost device. Eighty percent of information theft is due to lost or stolen devices. About 50% of network intrusions are performed with credentials gathered from lost or stolen devices.

When it comes to IT security there is only one way to make sure that no one but you can read your information, and that is to have your computer's hard drive encrypted. This means that information cannot be read without the correct encryption key. Trying to hack into an encrypted computer leaves the perpetrator with useless so-called cipher text—just ones and zeroes in no particular order. If a perpetrator tries to log in with the wrong password, the computer shuts down after five failed attempts, and information remains encrypted on the hard drive. This technology will keep you and your customers' information protected.

This year, give others the same peace of mind. Instead of sending a holiday card to customers and business partners, send them a note saying, “We think cybersecurity is important—we hope you do, too. Our gift to you is assurance that we are protecting shared data.”

Don't ruin the holidays by not knowing who has your data.