Laptop theft is a serious threat to every person who owns one. What do you use to protect your laptop from potential thieves? It’s important to protect your laptop as you can lose hardware, software, and data that you may not have backed up. Thieves can have access to sensitive and personal information that will provide them with ways to steal your identity.
Laptops are becoming more widely used by companies and individuals because they allow you to be more productive while you’re on the go. Laptop theft is now on the rise and organizations as well as individuals are being affected by this crime. This also leads to potential data breaches that can affect employees, customers and reputations. Laptop theft is also the second highest cause of financial loss.
There are ways to protect your laptop and the sensitive information on it. Methods of protecting laptops and intellectual information have been developed to prevent theft. Alarms, cables, and laptop locks prevent potential thieves from simply walking away with your laptop in tow. Visual deterrents, such as STOP security plates are very difficult to remove, and they can also destroy the resale value. These methods are great ways to prevent laptops from being stolen.
You can lose your hardware, software, and sensitive data that you have not saved or backed up elsewhere. In addition, thieves may also have access to sensitive data and personal information if it isn’t encrypted. Some systems authorize access based on credentials stored on the laptop, including MAC addresses, Internet browser cookies, cryptographic keys, and stored passwords. In the absence of security measures, thieves can access information such as bookkeeping files, Word documents containing passwords and employee and customer information.
Use unique passwords and more advanced technological security precautions, such as Remote Laptop Security (RLS) that is designed to secure data and important information even if the laptop is not in the trusted hands of its owner. With RLS, the owner of a laptop can reject access rights to the stolen laptop from any computer.
Remember to secure your laptop and protect it from potential thieves. If you have important company information or files stored on your laptop, ensure that it is password protected and encrypted. More importantly, ensure that you back up all of your information on your laptop and keep it safe.
If your laptop does get stolen, there are some GPS programs out there to track your computer. It takes a little computer knowledge but taking the time to set those up can be very beneficial if something were to happen. Also with your laptop and any of your electronics, write down all the serial numbers and get an engraving pen, which you will write your name and the serial number on.
Many thieves pawn the items they steal. If you take the steps to prove to authorities that the stolen goods are your merchandise, it will make the process of return much easier, as the thieves won’t be able to profit at the pawn stores.
Person I ever stole my laptop, but if it Ariive, c, Is Having important tools to help us.
Personally, I use a tracker on my 4g key to my laptop. it works perfectly and I do not have to worry since. But the weak point Is that anyone can remove this clée internet.
A wise post: protecting one’s laptop from thieves is a dangerous problem in our technological society nowadays. You have to watch everything you own now– even your own identity! It’s kind of scary how even “who you are” could be stolen from you; your name, money, security numbers, address… Everything you are is linked to each other and you can’t let thieves into your personal network! Once they’re in, there’s only a small chance you’ll be able to get them out. Thieves don’t discriminate against age, race, or gender. Careful out there!
As I’m heading out for college, I’m getting more and more concerned about thievery on various levels. There hardly seems any way to safely protect everything. But leaving is already decided, so the alternative is to minimize the damage. I suppose in this case, I’ll have one less item to worry about… Right after I decide whether to get a new laptop or bring my four years old.
Cases of laptop theft is very common where I stay. And the bad part is most laptop owners are not always advanced users that would have taken certain security measures incase their laptop got stolen. I think this post is going to be useful for those kind of users.
Although, using a kind of tracker for the laptop is also a good idea. Infact, I know of someone who his laptop got stolen and the thieves pawned it. He tracked the laptop to the house of the person that bought it from the pawn shop with the help of the authority.
I haven’t really brought my netbook in public places but I might have to in the near future. One thing that worried me when I read this post is that while Chrome is useful for showing me the passwords I’ve used for different websites, it’s also something that can be used against me if ever this netbook gets stolen (I don’t login my google account on any other machines, so I’m not too worried about that). I’m going to check for more info about the safeguards which were suggested in this post.
Great and helpful article. Although it’s tough to recover a stolen laptop unless you’re really lucky. It’s always possible to protect your data atleast and make your laptop as secure as possible.
There are some great tips in this article to do that and hopefully most people would implement it.
Most of the time is impossible to get the laptop back, but in my country it really is impossible to get your recently stolen laptop back. I hadn’t stopped to think what would happen if someone stole my laptop! Gosh, I’ll try to protect my files more… I have very sensitive info in my laptop; a lot passwords and a private blog!
I doubt that the average laptop owner follows any of this advice though they probably should. I know that most of the people in my circles are going the tables or smart phone route without a laptop in the mix at all. Thanks for the security advice, I’ll save the info.
How does RLS work though? If the computer isn’t connected to wifi will it still work? I don’t know its almost impossible to protect your laptop once its stolen. You’ve basically passed the point of no return. With all of the cracking programs out today any simple hacker can bypass your simple security protocols. Even the more advanced ones too.
I’ve known a victim of fraud stemming from information stored on a stolen laptop. He had a very difficult time showing the authorities his innocence, due to how much the purchases looked like something he would purchase for himself.
For this very reason, I keep a deeply embedded kill switch along with a gps tracker on my laptop. Its hard enough to lose your possessions, but your identity and trustworthiness at the same time is simply too high a price to pay.
Laptops are probably hard to track because most of them don’t really have the connectivity a phone offers. You’re only option would be to track the MAC address if that’s possible but then again it’s easy to just break open a laptop’s security. Thanks for this post, really informative.
I never really thought about what to do if my laptop got stolen. I have three different passwords on my computer. One is the regular text, the other one is a 4 digit pin, and the last one is a picture. I also have face recognition as a security feature. I always back my computer up on daily basis just in case something happen so all of my information is secured.
I have a lock/cable that locks into mine with a code. I know it could be easily cut by someone but it would take them a little bit of effort and they’d have to break into my apartment first. If I were in some public place like a coffee house others would spot them and hopefully thwart their attempt. It’s a little piece of mind when I take my laptop out in public.
Right now I’m not truly worried about getting my laptop stolen, but more worried about the fact I’ll be staying at the place of a friend, but this one friend has a very nosy sister who totally loves making my life impossible one way or another. Now, there will be times me and my friend won’t be home! Meaning my laptop will be there all alone! I’m so afraid this girl might try to take a peek to the things I have there, what worries me the most if the fact I have a personal blog… and I’ve been quite honest in that blog about how I feel about that girl. I’m thinking of using one of those softwares that can hide whole folders…