Security Features to Look for While Choosing a Business Laptop
by Sushant Singh September 22, 2020 0 commentsBusiness laptops are designed keeping in mind the needs of business users, and security is one such critical need. Security of endpoint devices like laptops has become even more important due to the current pandemic where people are forced to work from home, and reliance on remote communication has increased substantially. Having anti-virus and other anti-malware software on these endpoint devices is not enough, because hackers have figured out how to attack even the hardware. Webcam hacks, BIOS corruption, zero-day attacks are just a few methods used by them. These and many other security threats can be stopped by the endpoint hardware itself if it has the right security features. Here are a few to consider when planning to buy a business laptop. Not all of them are available only in expensive enterprise class business laptops. Some are available in cheaper business laptops as well.
Webcam Shutters
Hackers have figured out ways to hack a users’ webcam and use it for spying. Knowing that there might be someone watching you while you work can be a very uncomfortable feeling. So instead of putting a tape on your webcam, look for a device that already has a physical shutter on the webcam. This way, even if your webcam does get hacked, you’re safe from peering eyes. There are both manual and automatic electric (button operated) shutters available in business laptops.
BIOS Protection
If your laptop’s BIOS gets corrupted by a malware, then it can render the machine useless. The only remedy is to either replace the motherboard or the machine itself. You could re-flash the BIOS, but that would require technical expertise, and business users may not have the luxury of time to do that. Instead, it’s better to go for a business laptop that can automatically detects this corruption, re-writes the BIOS, and brings it back to its original healthy state quickly.
Presence Awareness
Many people have the habit of forgetting to lock their laptop when they move away from their seat to take a bio-break or pick up a cup of coffee. Hackers could take advantage of this situation and easily plant a malware program on the unlocked machine. This is where presence awareness technologies can be useful. These automatically detect that the user is no longer in front of the laptop and locks it. Moreover, the technology can even unlock it when the user returns.
Protect Screen from Peering Eyes
Business users would like to keep their work private and not really have people looking at it over their shoulder or from the side. This can be a potential visual security hack, for which laptops have technologies that can restrict the screen’s viewing angle at the click of a button. This ensures that no matter where you are, your screen is visible only to you. HP’s SureView technology is one such example that works this way.
TPM Module
Trusted Platform Module or TPM is nothing new and has been around for years. It could be a chip soldered onto the laptop’s motherboard, or it could be embedded into the firmware. Its job is to provide a tamper-resistant way to store your encryption keys. Needless to say that the hardware chip based one is more secure than the firmware based one. It can be a good feature to have on a business laptop.
Speedy Recovery from Malware Attack
If a malware infects all your systems, how quickly can you recover from it? The traditional method can be a time consuming and costly affair, as it would require your IT department to access each laptop, format and re-install everything on it. Business laptops nowadays have excellent recovery capabilities that can restore the machine to a previous state or to an image of your choice within minutes.
Private browsing
Since a lot of security threats end up reaching your system through the web browser, having a feature that can prevent such a thing can be a boon. Business laptops have features that can allow private browsing, wherein the entire browsing session happens in a secure virtual environment. When you close the browser, everything that was downloaded is also cleaned out. This ensures your system doesn’t get infected.
Protection from Unknown Attacks
Zero-day attacks, or the attacks by malware for which the anti-malware sw hasn’t developed a cure are becoming common. These can be very dangerous. Business laptops nowadays come with Zero-Day attack protection, wherein they have software that uses algorithms to detect suspicious patterns of activity on your system and alert you so that you can take timely action.
Business laptops have become much more advanced and are manufactured keeping the real needs of business users in mind. So instead of relying purely on hardware specs alone, do look out for these security features the next time you go hunting for a business laptop.
Check out https://store.hp.com/in-en/default/hp-business-offers for some good deals by HP on laptops.
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