Even paradise needs backups
Just about everyone around me seems to be doing it. Unlocked doors. Open cars. Beach bags that hold phones, money and identification left behind while their owners run over to greet a sea turtle. Both natives and tourists are pretty relaxed about such things.
I’m the stick in the mud who’s always grimacing at these sights and saying to my party, “Hey, I’m not so sure it’s a good idea to leave that stuff sitting there unattended.” After working for years to develop a security-first mindset, you don’t shed it so simply when you’re in paradise. Besides, hard experience has taught me that, as wonderful a place as Hawaii is, it’s no more a utopia than anywhere else on the planet. Twice on trips to the Big Island of Hawaii, we have been burgled. In one case, someone broke into our hotel room while we were at dinner. We came back to a ransacked room and a knife stuck into the middle of the bed. That sort of thing has a way of putting a damper on your holiday and convincing you that it’s never a good idea to put your guard down fully.
Of course, my real security interest is in the cyber world, and since I usually travel with some electronic gear, I’ve had to think about how to safeguard my digital assets when I’m on vacation. Here’s my advice.
I certainly hope you all have fun and carefree holiday trips this summer. But if you’re anything like me, you can’t be truly carefree if you feel as if you have dropped your guard too much.
Aloha nui loa, y’all.
With more than 20 years in the information security field, Kenneth van Wyk has worked at Carnegie Mellon University's CERT/CC, the U.S. Deptartment of Defense, Para-Protect and others. He has published two books on information security and is working on a third. He is the president and principal consultant at KRvW Associates LLC in Alexandria, Va.