As you prepare to travel, consider where you are going, and what you will be doing while you are there. Ask yourself if there is risk involved with bringing certain types of data along. Take an inventory of the information on your computer, and parse out those things you must have while traveling. If there is any confidential data, it must be encrypted. You might want to consider moving some of the data on your computer to another location temporarily.
Before you leave, make sure there is a backup of your system in case the computer you travel with is lost or stolen.
In addition to the measures described in Securing Your Computer, the following precautions should be taken when traveling to help keep your data safe and secure.
Working on your laptop while traveling increases the risk of data exposure or password compromise. This is particularly true when using open wired or wireless networks at hotels, airports, and other public places.
To minimize these risks, you should use the campus Virtual Private Network (VPN) when working with sensitive Cornell data. This will ensure that everything you do is encrypted as it goes over the network. VPN protects your data from electronic eavesdropping.
To connect to some department and central resources from off campus, you may be required to use Cornell's Virtual Private Network (VPN).
I just quickly checked my email. Is it safe?
Time isn’t a factor – you only need to type your password, credit card number, or other information once on a compromised computer for it to be stolen.
Treat wireless connections in Internet cafes, hotels, airport lounges, conference facilities, and other public places with extreme caution, because you don’t know how safely the network has been configured or who is using it.
The campus Virtual Private Network only protects your connections back to campus, so if you are connecting to non-Cornell sites, like your bank, consider whether you trust that the person or institution providing the network access has adequately addressed security.
Keep your laptop and mobile devices physically secure
When traveling, if feasible, bring along a laptop that doesn’t have all your data on it. Contact your department’s technical support staff to find out if they keep spare laptops on hand for this purpose.
If you have to travel with a computer that has your data on it, make sure it is backed up before you leave. If you lose the computer, this will make it easier for you to recover your data. Backing up regularly not only protects you against losing all your work, but if your computer is lost or stolen, having the backed-up data on hand makes it possible to determine what, if any, sensitive data may be at risk.
If any confidential data is stored on the computer, it must be encrypted. Additionally, if you travel with your computer, it’s a very good idea to encrypt the entire hard disk. A benefit of encrypting the entire hard disk is that all of the data on your computer is protected if your computer is lost or stolen, so you don’t have to worry about what to encrypt and what not to encrypt.
If you need to encrypt data, check with your department’s technical support staff to find out what encryption solutions are used in your department.
