Protect your laptop data because hackers can easily take your important business files if you are not careful.
Many people forget simple things and lose everything.
In this blog, you will learn six easy ways to keep your laptop safe—like using strong passwords, backups, and antivirus—so your business stays secure and your data doesn’t go anywhere.
How to Protect Your Laptop Files & Data
From phishing attacks to theft to well-meaning family members, the files and other account data you keep on your laptop can be at risk in many ways.
Here are some smart precautions you can take to keep it safe.
Use a User and Guest Account
If you’re out with your family and take your laptop along, a family member may want to use it. Or you might need to entertain a child.
But if you give them permission to use your main user account, you could find yourself with accidentally deleted files, emails, and works.
Instruct the laptop to create a guest user account so that only you can access your main computer files. Then, if someone else needs to borrow your computer, have them do so via the guest account so they can’t access any of your data.
So you can create user accounts (family or nonfamily) in Windows 10.
If you’re creating your own account, choose a password or PIN that others won’t know.
Password Protect Sensitive Files
Do you store a spreadsheet of client SSNs or other sensitive information on your laptop? If so, you need to put a password on that file to offer an extra barrier of protection.
There are a few software tools that allow you to password-protect a file. Here’s how you password-protect an Excel workbook.
Encrypt Your Hard Drive
Should a thief steal your laptop, it can grant such a criminal access to all sorts of information. Just imagine all the accounts you may have been logged into.
Also, many users have passwords saved in their browsers, also readily available to anyone with possession of your computer.
You can keep a thief out of your data by encrypting your laptop hard drive. As a result, no one without the encryption key can access your files.
Use the Find My Laptop Feature
Whether your laptop is lost or stolen, tracking its location through another device can be crucial to try and retrieve the data and device.
Windows 10 and macOS have their own version of a “Find My Device” feature that you can turn on.
- Windows 10: Type “Find my device” into the search bar. This will bring up a link to the account settings area, where you can activate Find My Device and enable location settings for the laptop.
- macOS: Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy. And on Privacy, enable Location Services. Next, return to System Preferences, in the Apple ID menu, click iCloud in the sidebar,r then check to Find My Mac.
Keep Your Laptop Updated/Patched
Most of the time data breaches occur due to some unpatched system vulnerabilities. Failing to keep your laptop up to date can result in system takeover by a ransomware infection, virus, or other types of malware.
There are two main things you have to really watch besides patches and updates:
- Your computer OS
- Your software
- Your firmware (typically through a manufacturers app, “HP Support Assistant” or “Dell Support Assist”)
Keep Your Device Backed Up
Because of the portability of laptops. They’re just much more likely to get dropped or damaged which can lead to data loss to different degrees depending on how broken the drive is.
The backup and recovery program will make sure your whole hard drive is backed up to protect your laptop data from damage, loss, or theft.
If you’re only copying files to a file storage app (i.e. OneDrive or Google Drive) then you aren’t backing up any of your software programs or settings.
Plus, files syncing to cloud storage can be overwritten or deleted by mistake. That’s why you should be using a system solely focused on data backup and recovery.
Enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for Extra Security
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) provides additional protection for your laptop by requiring more than just a password to access your accounts. This way, even if someone gets a hold of your password, they cannot log in without additional verification, like a one-time code sent to your smartphone or a biometric authentication.
Most online services you use, including email, cloud storage and financial accounts, do support MFA. Particularly as these cyber threats are on the rise, enabling MFA can mitigate the risk of unauthorized access and help protect your sensitive data.
Always use a strong method of authentication (like an authenticator app), as opposed to SMS codes that may be intercepted. Enforcing MFA on all your accounts provides a serious boost to the overall security of your laptop.
Use a VPN When Connecting to Public Wi-Fi
Public Wi-Fi networks, such as coffee shops, airports, hotels, etc., are prone to cyberattacks. Hackers can also intercept data sent across these unsecured networks, potentially stealing your passwords, financial information, or other sensitive data. A VPN encrypts your internet connection, making accessing your data more difficult for cybercriminals.
A VPN forwards your traffic through an encrypted server, covering your IP address to keep your browsing private. Choose a reputable VPN with strong encryption protocols and a no-logs policy. If you often log on to public Wi-Fi, turning on a VPN is one of the first steps to protect the data of your laptop from cyber attacks.
Keep Your Files Secure with Help from RCOR
Our North Carolina IT experts can help you implement backup, encryption, and other safeguards to keep your laptop files secure.