10 Security Tips When Traveling with Your Laptop

I wrote these 10 tips with reference from Internet sources and my personal experience. When I did security consulting I traveled a lot, the best tip I can recall is that I wrote something in the default paper card inside my laptop bag: "If you get this laptop, please call xxxxxx (my cell number), I will give you CNY1500 in cash face-to-face!" -- enough money for an old IBM R51. But fortunately my laptop didn't get lost for years, so I could not confirm this tip works or not:)

Another tip which is not included below is to eject your harddisk from laptop and always keep it with you before boarding plane.

1. Back up valuable data before traveling. Use a removable storage to back up your important and sensitive files and keep it in a safe place.
2. Avoid traveling with a laptop bag that is obviously meant for a laptop. The more generic looking your laptop bag is, the safer your laptop will be.
3. Don't put your laptop in your checked luggage.
4. Label your laptop with your name and contact information. This will help airport lost-and-founds contact you easily.
5. Be careful at the security checkpoint. Always wait for the person in front of you to leave the area first. It is common practice for thieves to create a distraction and snatch a laptop when it's out of its owner's hands.
6. Never let your laptop out of your sight. While you are at the airport -- in the bathroom, on the phone, or in the lounge -- always keep your computer bag on your shoulder.
7. Once you board the plane, keep your laptop bag under the seat in front of you. Don't put it in the overhead bin, where it could get stolen or damaged.
8. Be alert to who can see your laptop screen when working on a plane or other public place. Use a notebook privacy filter when you must work on confidential information in public locations.
9. Put your laptop in the hotel safe when you are not using it. When you go out of hotel room, you should place your laptop in a secure cabinet in your room.
10. Keep your firewall open and update to latest anti-virus codes. Especially when you access internet from hotel room or Internet cafe, block all incoming traffic.

Vulnerability Management with MS08-067

It’s already 2 weeks since Microsoft released patch for MS08-067. The company I am working for has already patched 88% windows servers in the first week, and till now, 98% servers were patched.

This time frame is well compliant with company security policy, and here I have some experience to share after this urgent patching period.

First of all, for a vulnerability management program, assets management is the most important. Asset inventory should be centralized and well maintained, the scope can be identified in first step, then all assigned owners and custodians will be notified immediately. This will speed up patch progress, especially for DMZ servers which are facing threats from internet.

Secondly, a well established patch process is needed, which should be effective in such urgent situation. Usually ops team has to submit change request to get change windows to perform patching task, but for urgent patch issue, there should be special process to gain support from upper management, pushing jobs done quickly.

Thirdly, security team should be armed with some tools, to identify vulnerability, check patch status, or exploit vulnerability for demonstration purpose. Except the commercial software our company bought, here I recommend the free Metasploit Framework that everyone can download freely. Metasploit is an open platform to do penetration test and vulnerability research. The project team was updating ms08-067 scanner and exploit in daily snapshot, we could finish the cycle of identification, assessment, checking and monitor in ms08-067 patch management easily.