And now I know how personal information get’s released

Thursday I was sitting in a Starbucks next to an insurance guy.

That isn’t a big deal. What is a big deal is this; He kept leaving his machine to walk outside. And  leaving the computer up & unlocked talking to a VPN connection (I think) to the home office.

When I first sat down the machine was unattended for at least 20 minutes and I could see the guys corporate email.

If I happened to be a hacker it wouldn’t have taken me too long with his machine and I’d have been able to download tons of private client data.

He was looking at Client profiles on a web page that has a ton of personal data plainly visible.

I mean DUDE at least lock your screen!

Heck if I’m running my machine on battery, the screen dims and computer locks within 4 minutes of inactivity.

I’m really surprised at the carelessness of this guy and several other people in the room.

And don’t even get me started on the unsecured WiFi signals my computer is seeing.

I swear! All it would have taken is 3 – 5 seconds with a flash drive and this guys computer, and several others in the room would have been sending me all their account information, and all their corporate data too.

I always try to teach my clients about security and how to make it at least more difficult for bad guys to get at their data.

For example, I was using my phone hotspot instead the Starbucks WiFi. I was connected to the ONE authorized connection my phone will allow. Why should I expose my email passwords and logins to a network that I’m not familiar with?

I suppose I’m a little strange. But I can’t see making it EASY for a bad guy to screw me!

Perhaps I should start teaching Operational Security to corporate clients.