JHU Physics and Astronomy has a PC and a Mac loaner laptop available specifically for faculty and staff traveling outside of the US. Please contact pha-help@jhu.edu to borrow.
Technology Travel Security Guidelines
Required Steps
- Notify departmental IT of your travel plans well in advance. They will assist preparing your devices for travel.
- All devices must be encrypted. This includes laptops, external drives, cell phones and tablets.
- All devices must be locked with strong passwords.
- All devices should be fully backed up. Physical backups should remain at home.
- All network connections should use VPN. Connecting to VPN should be the first step after connecting to any external network.
- Unsecured public wireless access points should not be used.
- Any device that leaves your possession should be considered compromised.
Strongly Recommended Steps
- Do not travel with your primary device. Plan for travel as if your device will be lost, stolen or confiscated. It is highly recommended that you travel with a properly secured system with just essential data and applications installed.
- Change passwords immediately upon returning. Accounts that have been compromised during travel can often go unnoticed. It is far safer to change passwords used while traveling than to just assume that they are ok.
- Use web based email clients while traveling. Using web clients that operate within the browser are more reliable and secure while traveling.
- It is highly recommended that you use personal or mobile Hotspots when traveling. Most cellular carries offer mobile hotspot devices and most smartphones have the personal hotspot feature built in. Hotspots allow you to connect cellular data networks to WiFi enabled devices securely.
Updated 5/30/2019