View Full Version : Best way to lockdown and/or protect a laptop post theft?
BMF Effects
10-02-2010, 01:37 PM
My wife had her laptop stolen out of her hotel room yesterday. While we're fairly certain there's no real sensitive info on it (other than passwords to Ebay, etc.) we're still a little worried so is there a way to lockdown a laptop in case of theft? Something like X number of attempts and failed logins wipes the hard drive, real Mission Impossible type stuff? Well maybe not that severe but you get the idea. Thanks for the help.
You can encrypt the entire drive, then without the proper credentials the disk is pretty much useless.
BMF Effects
10-02-2010, 01:44 PM
You can encrypt the entire drive, then without the proper credentials the disk is pretty much useless.
Would this through a piece of software or can it be done with the OS (Win7)? Thanks!
Matt Jones
10-02-2010, 01:45 PM
You can encrypt the entire drive, then without the proper credentials the disk is pretty much useless.
GAD - I've been looking at truecrypt to do this. Do you have any recommendations?
Strung Up
10-02-2010, 02:10 PM
Personally, I view open-source security encryption software akin to the wolf building the henhouse.
Back when I really cared about this stuff (I'm about to again), DES was the standard, and PGP was the accessible way to go for 'regular' users. Now, AES is the standard, and PGP MAY still be the way to go, but apparently they've been purchased by Symantec. To some, that's merely a different, corporate, set of wolves building the henhouse, but I'd take my chances with them.
jonleecourage
10-02-2010, 02:11 PM
Winmagic
Personally, I view open-source security encryption software akin to the wolf building the henhouse.
Back when I really cared about this stuff (I'm about to again), DES was the standard, and PGP was the accessible way to go for 'regular' users. Now, AES is the standard, and PGP MAY still be the way to go, but apparently they've been purchased by Symantec. To some, that's merely a different, corporate, set of wolves building the henhouse, but I'd take my chances with them.
It depends on who you're hiding info from and why.
If you want to keep your info out of the hands of ID thieves, any of them is good enough IMO. If you want to keep your info out of the hands of people with REAL resources, you make a great point. I used to be a huge fan of PGP, and I think Phil Zimmerman is a real hero for what he did. Shame it's been corporatized.
To the person who asked about Win7, sorry I don't have any experience there.
FlyingDutchman
10-02-2010, 02:54 PM
http://s8.thisnext.com/media/largest_dimension/C5C944C7.jpg
Laptops are meant to be taken with..
getbent
10-02-2010, 03:00 PM
on the mac, you can use filevault, make sure to login after sleep and use one of Absolute software's solutions (the one that fits you best) and you can recover the laptop too...
we use it and have gotten laptops back, logged in, totally safe and kept our stuff...
filevault is part of the OS too, so, no cost for that part.
dangerine49
10-02-2010, 07:14 PM
Computrace software from Absolute can get your stolen laptop recovered. They also have an option for remote hard drive wiping (selective files or total wipe) when a laptop is stolen if you have sensitive data.
stratzrus
10-02-2010, 08:30 PM
I always use a Kensington Cable Lock when I'm staying in a hotel.
There's a small slot in the side of your laptop that it fits into. Slip the cable through part of the desk or a large chair and then attach it to the laptop and you're good to go. I use a key version, not the combination version pictured below.
I've never had a problem.
http://images17.newegg.com/is/image/newegg/34-997-502-S01?$S640$
The Golden Boy
10-06-2010, 06:00 AM
This is good stuff to know, Junior went off to college with his new fancy-pants laptop...
Trick question. You CAN'T protect it after it's been stolen. You have to protect it before.
Gitarman
10-06-2010, 06:57 AM
Trick question. You CAN'T protect it after it's been stolen. You have to protect it before.
Yeah, this. Nothing can be done remotely. Your login credentials can easily be cracked and the thieves will have access to your entire system.
Your first defense should be physical security: keep it with you or use a cable lock like the one above. Secondly, you can give it a BIOS password, but that can be circumvented by pulling the CMOS battery. Thirdly, there are usb dongles/ fingerprint readers/ security tokens that can lock out your Windows accounts. Lastly, you can encrypt any sensitive data using some of the methods described above. When it is all said and done, though, all of your security measures can be bypassed by a determined thief.
However, I'd venture to guess that 99% of laptop that are stolen end up in 2nd hand/ pawn shops in exchange for drug $$$.
steved0x
10-06-2010, 07:06 AM
Win7 (Ultimate or Enterprise edition, note Home or Starter edition) has Bitlocker, and most newer laptops have a TPM chip that can be used in conjunction with BitLocker to require a pin when the machine is turned on or rebooted. And if someone steals the laptop they can't use it, and if they take the drive out to put in another computer to read data they can't because it is encrypted.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/features/bitlocker.aspx
Steve
StompBoxBlues
10-06-2010, 07:37 AM
Interesting case here in Oslo recently.
A young man living in Oslo had installed, I think it was freeware, some tracking software for just such an eventuality. I don't know if it did anything against contents of the drive, but it DID have an in that could be activated from another PC, so that when the theives logged onto the internet, it would turn on the features....
Which included GPS location of the laptop, and it even sent the real owner a snapshot (or a few) of the person now in possession of the laptop taken with the laptops own camera.
Unfortunately for him, this is Oslo, and the police seem to put a lot of seemingly easy cases "on ice". Even though he had the location (which was just a block away from his apt.) and even a photo of the perp...they needed more for some reason.
Seemed pretty slick though...
dc_jcm800
10-06-2010, 10:36 AM
I've been deploying McAfee Endpoint encryption to enterprise laptops with good results.
Upon boot up, if you cant log into Endpoint, you cant get into the laptop.
stratman34
10-06-2010, 10:56 AM
We just deployed Pointsec (http://www.checkpoint.com/products/datasecurity/pc/) to all the laptops in our company. One thing to note is... with this type of security, if you have other hardware issues, you can't simply remove the drive and mount it somewhere else to get files off. (which is totally the point)
That being said, you BETTER be doing backups to guard against data loss....
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