Stolen Laptops

[Mac]

It dawned on me today that we have close on 200 laptops among various departments and staff where I work, and in the last 3 years, we've had only 2 stolen. But, we're gonna be handing out more soon, and many of the staff who'll be getting a laptop arent the most reliable. So we kinda expect 2, to turn into 22!

So we have policy and process and procedures and paperwork and all that stuff already in place, but if a laptop is stolen or lost are there any real practical methods of recovering it?

A software solution would be practically useless I guess. Reformat and its gone.

What's available Hardware wise? And are the hardware solutions practical and cost effective? And has anyone had any real world practical experience with laptop tracking?

Also, even if we could track and pinpoint a stolen laptop, would it get the device back to us (Police involvement)?

[MikHail]

I use Laptop Lojack for mine,

Basically some laptops have Laptop lojack embedded in the BIOS, it just needs internet connectivity to send its heartbeat to HQ

website is here http://www.absolute.com/en_US/products/lojack

there is a local reseller here

http://www.lojackforlaptops.com.au/

took about 3 days turn around to get my software

[PabloEscobar]

Bond and Insurance?

Make users responsible for their own laptops?
Make users Buy/Lease the laptop if you feel they cant be trusted?

[Mac]

Originally Posted by PabloEscobar

Bond and Insurance?

Make users responsible for their own laptops?
Make users Buy/Lease the laptop if you feel they cant be trusted?

Yeah already been covered by Insurance and company/staff policy. That side of thing is covered off already.

That said though, a cost effective tracking system might mean a reduction in insurance premiums and excesses for us - which is quite hefty by all accounts.

[fad]

Dell have a laptop tracking program built into the bios. You turn it on/off and its a permanent choice. You will need to pay a yearly fee for this service.

This way they can't reformat it. They have to replace the mainboard, which is pointless.

[IACSecurity]

Does it matter?
As long as you have data protection (full disk encryption as an example) and remote syncronised storage (iFolder or similar) and a SOE, the actual physical loss of a laptop is of pretty minor consequence.

Insurance replaces the laptop.
You re-image a spare (spares for loss/theft/failure)
You re-sync their data again.

Back up and running in a very short time, with no loss to the organisation except for 1 hours work (IT) or lack of work (User) this tends to be a far cheaper option that comparativley expensive software, at the end of which you still need full disk encryption, remote storage (hardware failure) and an SOE.

The cost differential is really your insurance premiums - the cost of the software, and maintaining that software.

[terrastrife]

totally non corporate view, its fun to pick up the ppl that sole it

but yeah, run vista/7 bitlocker everything, and just view it as gone and replace it with a new one.

[Iceman]

Like IAC said. Make it a non event in terms of data loss.

Forget recovery, the hardware is likely not worth the cost. You can make it unattractive as possible to thieves by buying brands that have difficult to reset bios passwords (without vendor support).

Making users responsible is a big step. The veiled threat of 'you'll be in trouble if it goes missing' isn't a good motivator I find. Try something like 'this old PIII loaner laptop is your permanent replacement should you lose the nice core duo we bought you'

[Gristy]

Originally Posted by fad

Dell have a laptop tracking program built into the bios. You turn it on/off and its a permanent choice. You will need to pay a yearly fee for this service.

This way they can't reformat it. They have to replace the mainboard, which is pointless.

i know this option, do you have any good resources on it? as ive looked into it and even the dell suppor tcoudlnt tell me anything.. telling me i had to run linux and that was after a hour of being on hold.

I couldnt find much useful things online either.

[the scotsman]

Originally Posted by Gristy

i know this option, do you have any good resources on it? as ive looked into it and even the dell suppor tcoudlnt tell me anything.. telling me i had to run linux and that was after a hour of being on hold.

I couldnt find much useful things online either.

Dell Computrace

Comes built into all Dell laptop BIOS. Just needs to be enabled...but as mentioned previously, there's obviously a yearly fee.

Aussie Computrace Agent

[wazza]

Originally Posted by Iceman

You can make it unattractive as possible to thieves by buying brands that have difficult to reset bios passwords (without vendor support).

That relies on the thieves a) knowing that its difficult to reset and b) know what laptop it is before they steal it. Chances are if they break into a house/office/car its going to be a theft of opportunity and they'll just grab whatever is close and easy, they won't bother checking the brand before pinching it, and if they find out later they can't crack it to re-sell it they'll just bin it (if they even bother formatting etc before selling it).

[Jai]

We use Lenovo laptops, with a Hard Drive Password and BIOS password. So even when you plug the hard drive into another machine, it wont even detect the partition because of the password.

We actually had a machine stolen out of a car... 6 months later the cops found it. Who'd a thought! Thieves just replaced the hard drive and it had XP home on it, limewire, usual kiddy crap!

JK

[grazhopa]

Originally Posted by IACSecurity

Does it matter?
As long as you have data protection (full disk encryption as an example) and remote syncronised storage (iFolder or similar) and a SOE, the actual physical loss of a laptop is of pretty minor consequence.

depending on the reasons for having lappies remote sync may not work.

assuming laptops are for people who work in a mobile environment.

i connected to the corp network maybe once a month ( excluding the daily connection via nextg and vpn ).

losing a month of work can suck balls if people dont keep backups themselves. or store the backup in the laptop bag.

[terrastrife]

Originally Posted by Jai

We use Lenovo laptops, with a Hard Drive Password and BIOS password. So even when you plug the hard drive into another machine, it wont even detect the partition because of the password.

We actually had a machine stolen out of a car... 6 months later the cops found it. Who'd a thought! Thieves just replaced the hard drive and it had XP home on it, limewire, usual kiddy crap!

JK

shouldnt the BISO password stop that? ie, hardware change, confirm in CMOS setup?

If not, wow thats pretty shitty of lenovo

[fad]

There are laptop unlock programs for most ATA security password commands. So I would not take this as data security. Get a FDE or similar software disk encryption program.