Dangerous Prototypes

Today threats to your data can come from many quadrants. It’s not enough to protect against malicious online attacks; there’s the very real threat of government confiscating and examining the electronic devices carried by international travelers, and even planting spyware. In this post from “The Doctor”, we’re shown one way to mitigate this threat, which involves the use of a USB key that you work to keep out of the clutches of others at all times. He notes, “When you’re trying to fly into or out of an airport en route to someplace else, it is entirely possible that the airport’s security staff will take you aside for a more thorough search and questioning while your stuff is taken someplace out of your control and analyzed. We know that there are malware packages available today that boobytrap the boot device of laptop computers to install various forms of surveillance malware which run the next time you start your machine up and compromise the OS even though you may have locked it down to prevent live attacks. That the malware may capture the passphrase used to unlock an encrypted hard drives in the computer is an additional kick in the pants that one must be prepared to dodge.”