Iron Mountain’s DataDefense

Imagine this scenario: you’re at a crowded coffeehouse doing work with your Wi-Fi connection when you take a quick break to buy a muffin and another super grande latte. You leave your table and your stuff, and wait in line at the counter in the front of the store. When you return to your table, your laptop is gone, and against all reason, none of your neighbors supposedly saw the theft taking place. You (and all your work files on your notebook) are history, right?

Wrong. Iron Mountain just released a new laptop security service called DataDefense, which would allow you to protect your files using an online interface to your stolen notebook. Any time the thief tried to access the Internet with your lifted laptop, DataDefense would shut down the operating system. Or, if you choose, you can have DataDefense agents delete every file on your notebook, or at least lock them down.

The security service also protects with an “out of contact” rule that kicks in at a designated amount of time that your computer has been out of contact with the server. Additionally, you can set an incorrect password limit-when hackers try to access your laptop a certain amount of times with a bad password, DataDefense automatically deletes the data.

Sounds like more destruction than salvation, right? Wrong again. Iron Mountain backs up its client data on remote servers, so that laptop files can be retrieved no matter what privacy measures are taken in case of theft.

DataDefense security will cost you per seat, or per agent, at $12 per seat and up. You can buy into the service either as a subscription-based server hosted by Iron Mountain, or as a licensed software that your own IT department can run.

Related articles:

- Lojack for laptops

By Matthew Brodsky

Monday, February 13, 2006