Career

Ctrl+Alt+Delete Before You Leave Your Seat

If you don’t know about computer security by now, I’m here to help you. Though user of a computer in the modern world should have at least heard about computer safety, at least. One of the safety measures that is very important, in corporate and personal environments is locking your computer. If you work in a corporate environment and your employer has not introduced this Information Security 101 clean desk policy to its employees, allow me to enlighten you.

A basic reason why this policy is strongly encouraged is because locking your computer when you are away keeps others from viewing the screen or using it when you’re not around.  It is vital in preventing unattended (and unwanted) access to your stuff and the company’s materials.  Locking your computer is always important if strangers are hovering or if you are going to step away from your computer for even a few minutes. It’s easy, just press the Windows key + L to lock your PC. Alternatively, you can press Ctrl+Alt+Delete before you leave your seat.

There used to be quite a bit of unattended accessible desktops/laptops at the office. It bothered me to no end to see this, especially when the Cyber-security Awareness team takes special care in educating us about the perils of mishandled information.

The prank of choice in our area was if a person left their computer accessible, some prankster would go into their email application and send a random “safe for work” email to everyone in the department, so that the recipients would think it came from the sender.  These emails would even go to executive staff. Uhm… yeah, not a fan of that.

I never thought it was nice to do that to anyone when you can just as easily help them by locking their computer, but I can almost make an exception for repeat offenders.  It puts them on blast, so the whole department knows that someone broke the rules and put info in jeopardy. Eventually though that fun diminished from that prank and it just became annoying.

Let’s be honest, it’s not acceptable to leave computers and laptops unattended and accessible for any length of time. It takes no time to press a couple of keys down at the same time to ensure safety. A person wouldn’t leave the front door to their home open and unattended, right? Same principle here.

If you aren’t already, you may want to practice the same security measures in your home, especially if you have tech-savvy impressionable children. They love the computer whether it’s to play games, write papers, or simply cruise the information highway of the Internet. The best thing to do in this case, is to adjust the administrative settings on the device so that minors have their own login or their own altogether.

Also, remember to lock your laptop when you’re out and about in cafe’s if you step away to the facilities or to order.

Locking your computer is an easy enough thing to do and it’s essential to the confidentiality of the information stored on your PC. It is something that is in your control. You can prevent sensitive info from being viewed or stolen. Let’s all do our parts to stay safe.