All PC Ports Closed Ahead!

We all love our thumb drives--these compact, highly portable and highly resilient devices can stand up to the toughest of abuse on the road.

However, they can also be used by the unscrupulous to steal data from an unsuspecting user?s laptop--or load a virus--while that person gets a cup of coffee at a Starbuck?s hot spot, for example.

Enter Safend Personal Protector. This 15MB program from Safend, an enterprise security firm, does one very simple thing: it locks up all of your Windows laptop?s physical communications ports, from USB and Firewire to PC Card slots, and requires you to allow any device that tries to connect to your laptop in that way to be approved by you.

The interface is direct and easy to understand (see screenshot below), and you use your Windows password to authenticate yourself. The program remembers previously authenticated devices and builds a "white list" of them, so you don't have to keep reauthorizing your iPod, for example.

Get the program for free at Safend.

For more up-to-the-minute blogs, stories, photos, and video from the nation's largest consumer electronics show, visit PC World's CES 2007 Live Coverage Infocenter.

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