The holidays bring travel, and if you’re anything like me, you may need to bring your data with
you. Since I often travel to events with rogue wireless networks (like when I go to DEF CON),
or I end up having to use my machines in crowded environments (like hotel lobbies),
I use a series of tools and products to keep my data secure while I’m traveling.
Here are my top ways to protect your data while traveling so you
don’t have to worry about your digital security and privacy while on the go.
One of the best ways to protect your data is by using an encrypted drive
for storage! I’ve partnered with Kingston Technology to bring you
this video just in time for holiday travel. Today I’ll show you exactly
how I used my own Kingston Ironkey VP80ES on a recent trip to keep my data secure.
Before you travel, you should take some precautionary steps to
ensure everything runs smoothly while you’re away from home:
- Update your computer and smartphone, drivers, and software. A lot of popular
vulnerabilities that attackers use have already been patched in the most up to
date operating systems and software, but if you head out on a trip without updating,
that could leave your devices open to risky situations. Doing a quick check of your settings
for any update notifications is an easy task to do to get ahead of many flaws and vulnerabilities.
- Turn off automatic connections to wifi, disable bluetooth and disable or turn off nfc. Opt to
turn these on manually whenever you need them instead (a perk of this security tip is that
this can also save battery since your devices won’t be struggling to find networks to connect
to constantly, since the radios will be turned off). In terms of Bluetooth and NFC, both of
these features can be used to siphon data off your devices by nearby attackers. When you leave WiFi
on, you run the risk of accidentally connecting to a rogue wireless network, where anyone else on
that network could potentially see your actions. - Choose a VPN provider for both mobile and PC,
download and test it. There are plenty of solid VPNs to choose from nowadays that are easy to
use on both mobile and PC. Using a good VPN is a crucial part of digital security while traveling
because it’ll encrypt your data in transit from your computer. It’ll hide your real IP address,
reroute your internet connection thru a VPN-owned server, and encrypt the data through an encrypted
“tunnel”. Using a VPN has a secondary benefit in that it can help you circumvent geo-blocking,
so you can still access live sports ball games, netflix libraries, or other streaming services
or sites. Do you want my recommendations for solid VPNs if you don’t wanna build and run
your own? I can do a whole video about that. - Set up “find my” or smart tags. Find My
Device is a feature found on popular OSs that can track your device via coordinates
on a map. If you misplace your phone or leave it in a taxi, or if someone steals
your backpack with your laptop in it, you can use Find My on another device that’s
logged into the same account to see where the lost device is. You can use physical
smart tags like AirTags to track where your device is. I put a smart tag in my suitcase
if I have to check it so I can ensure it’s on the same plane that I am on. But keep in mind,
this won't work out of the box and both the app and the smart tags need to be set up on your
accounts in order to work right before you travel. - Prep your portable data storage of choice - set
up your admin password or pin and customize options on your Kingston IronKey SSD or USB
drive. This will encrypt your data while you travel, and protects the files from brute force
attacks if someone attempts to guess the password to get in. Each of these uses a strong encryption
protocol called XTS-AES 256 bit encryption, and they’re hardware encrypted with a secure
chip. I demo’d each of these drives in my last video about securing your data while traveling.
Speaking of which, these are the things you should do while traveling:
- Keep electronic devices with you at all times. Don’t check them in your luggage,
because TSA locks are universal and easy to break into. In fact, 3d printed TSA
keys are a thing and they absolutely work - I’ve done it on my own test devices.
- If possible, leave all devices unconnected from BT, NFC, and Wifi - but especially Wifi. Newer
bluetooth is more secure than older versions, so you run less of a risk of using this if you want
to listen to music on a pair of earbuds, etc. But… - Wifi is inherently insecure. Especially public
wifi, even if it’s password protected. Wifi connections require your computer
or phone to send out requests to connect to known access points. Once it finds one,
or if you manually choose to connect to a new one, you create a handshake between your device and the
wireless access point that feeds you internet. If a lot of other people are also connected to
that access point for internet, those other “clients” may have the ability to see who
else is also connected. Since you have no control over public wifi access points,
you don’t know how it’s set up and if that router was set up to give client devices security. So…
- If having to use Wifi, use a VPN. This is a worst case scenario choice but I know sometimes
it happens and you have to use a public wifi network. Using a VPN will at least make you
less vulnerable to folks snooping on your data. - A pro tip! Make sure to subscribe to this
channel! I focus on online security and privacy tips for average users all the
time thanks to my hacker background, and your best line of defense is thinking like a hacker,
so you don’t end up being the easy target. - Another option: If you’re forced to use a
connection, use a hotspot if that’s available thru your carrier. This ensures that you are
in control of the access point - your phone - and you can set a password that only you know.
That means you’d be the only client device connected to your access point.
- If using digital devices in public places, don’t say private information out loud,
and protect your screen from snooping eyes. One time, I was sitting in an airport and a
lady was on the phone with her bank and she was reading out her credit card information
over the phone. Someone could’ve easily gone on a spending spree with the information she
was loudly sharing with everyone at our gate. - Turn on auto locks or sleep schedules so devices
automatically lock or shut off your screen. - And lastly, during travel, turn on auto
locking on your Kingston Ironkey. If it’s not in use, you can set up the Kingston Ironkey to
auto lock after a preset amount of time. That, plus auto locking your screen, can ensure that
no one gets access to your data even if they did gain access to your drive or your computer.
So you’ve reached your destination. Now what do you do?
- Try to not use the hotel wifi or ethernet. If you absolutely must, make sure your devices
aren’t discoverable on the network, and never allow your computer to automatically connect
to the hotel wifi or remember it. I feel like a parrot repeating myself,
but wireless use is a huge vulnerability in waiting when we travel. It bears repeating.
- AGAIN: Absolutely use a VPN for connections if you do need to connect.
- Pro tip: When staying at a hotel, don’t tell anyone your room number. A lot of hotels use
your room number and last name as credentials to pay for restaurant bills, bars, and hotel
wifi access. Giving someone your room number along with your last name gives them a really easy way
to use your data to pay for things in the hotel. - When using devices in public places, don’t leave
them unattended. It only takes a few seconds for someone to run up and steal a device. Take
this example. I’m sitting in a hotel lobby and lock my computer, but leave it there unattended,
along with my Kingston Ironkey SSD. Someone could easily come up and snatch my PC and
the SSD that’s plugged into it. Best line of defense is not leaving those devices unattended.
- Lock your devices or better yet, turn them off entirely when not in use. It only takes a
few seconds to run a USB Rubber Ducky script on a machine, and if the machine is unlocked,
this makes an attacker’s life even easier. Don’t be the low hanging fruit and make it a headache
for an attacker to even think of targeting you. - Use a Kingston Ironkey so brute forcing is
defeated. Take the example of us sitting in a hotel lobby. Let’s say I get up to just ask a
question of the front desk. In that time period, a thief sees my computer locked, doesn’t steal it,
but snipes the SSD. The SSD autolocked and is set to a password. They try to unlock the SSD to steal
my data, but are met with a lock screen that will destroy the files if they keep trying. They can’t
guess it, so they give up, maybe they put the SSD back in hopes I don’t notice it was missing.
Is that a lot of steps? Not really. The hardest part is doing the legwork before you leave,
then everything else can become habit. Set up encryption, updates, and a VPN,
and use good judgment for your threat model to ensure you’re best protected.
Do you have cybersecurity travel tips? Share them in the comments! Thanks again
to Kingston IronKey for sponsoring this video.
I’m Shannon Morse, bye yall!