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Linux has grown in popularity in the past few years. Many more people are using Live CD's now than they were say 3 years ago. And with this comes a new problem for network admins. How do you stop a person from accessing certain file on the HDD that they, under Windows, would not be allowed to access, or even see. If you have a personal computer you can't really protect it either. A password on the BIOS won't work because if you remove the battery on the motherboard, wait 10 seconds, insert the battery back in, your password is gone.

How do I stop this threat?

Kevin Panko
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Kredns
  • 3,067

6 Answers6

18

Keep all personal data (possibly your entire profile) in an encrypted partition that is decrypted with your account password (or even a separate password).

TrueCrypt can do such things (and it's free software).

Joachim Sauer
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11

The most obvious option is to remove (or move to lowest priority) the CD boot option and then set a password on your boot configuration utility.

Noldorin
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10

If they have access to your hardware, you can't be 100% secure. Keeping your secure data physically separate is the safest thing to do.

0

  1. There are BIOS passwords that can't be removed.

  2. Encrypt your hard drive. There are some good tools out there.

Georg Schölly
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0

If you are putting it like that, you don't.

Or you can encrypt part of the files on the disk which will lead to a slower load time due to decryption and you will have to have extra applications installed for it.

fmsf
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0

You could keep all of your personal data on an external encrypted drive. That way you can take all of your data wherever you go, and not have to worry about someone getting to it on your personal PC.

32Gb USB thumb drives are coming down in price.

Strozykowski
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