Protect Your Laptop When In Standby Or Hibernation
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A laptop will often go into hibernation or standby mode it has been inactive for a period of time. This is done to save power. When the laptop is resumed all programs and documents that were open are restored to the desktop. This is a great feature for laptop computers but it would be more comforting knowing that another user can not bring it out of standby or hibernation mode and access your information.
You can protect your laptop by password protecting it during standby or hibernation. When a user attempts to resume the computer, they will be prompted for the password of the user currently logged on. To configure this feature, option the Power Options applet in the Control Panel, click the Advanced tab, and select the box beside Prompt for password when computer resumes from standby.
Tags: laptop, diana huggins, standby, hibernation, power option
One Comment
Matt Ryan
September 21st, 2007
at 2:46pm
Laptop and notebook computers are very accessable, and this is a very good first step to securing the device from casual snoops. Someone more inclined to go a little further will find a way around a typical password, but this is an excellent way to prevent someone from opening the laptop and taking a glance at what you have readily available.
If there was another step I could recommend, it would be to use a flash “key” drive. This gives the laptop an added level of security in that you need a key to access the data. Thumb scanners are great for this as well, and provide a great level of security.
For the most security-conscious out there, a bios password is the way to go. This will lock someone out of the computer’s bios entirely, preventing the OS from loading until the password is entered. Again, this only prevents casual snooping, as someone with a certain level of nerdness could find a way around this step. The casual snoop however, would have a very hard time getting into any information they shouldn’t.