How to Recover Stolen Company Laptops
Imagine this: You walk into your office Monday morning and discover that all the laptops are gone. Stolen. Or maybe your house gets broken into over the weekend, and thieves make off with the work machine you brought home.
That's exactly what happened to my mother-in-law two days ago. And my buddy Doug a couple weeks earlier. And my sister-in-law's husband last month. Laptops are low-hanging fruit, easy for a thief to grab during a break-in. Indeed, well over a million laptops get stolen every year, according to FBI statistics.
Reality check: You need to proceed from the assumption that thieves are targeting your laptop(s) at this very minute -- and come up with a contingency plan so your business doesn't grind to a halt in the event of theft.
First step: Make regular and reliable backups. Just because your hardware goes missing doesn't mean your data has to -- and, let's face it, the data is what's important. If you're looking for a highly automated backup solution, check out the LaCie CloudBox. At the very least, deploy a cloud-sync solution to keep your data safe online.
Second step: Consider an anti-theft service, a kind of high-tech insurance policy that can help recover your stolen laptop(s) and even bust the criminals.
For example, I've just installed LockItTight, which offers free remote monitoring for one PC. The tiny Windows client, which runs invisibly in the background (it's not even listed in the Programs menu), transmits the PC's location (via Wi-Fi, when available) at regular intervals. If you want, it can capture screenshots, Webcam photos, and even keystrokes as well.
In other words, LockItTight helps your laptop "phone home," potentially collecting the info that could help you recover your gear. There's no guarantee it will work, but without it (or something like it), you're definitely hosed.
If you want to learn more about these kinds of solutions, I highly recommend PC Magazine's 6 Ways to Find Your Stolen Laptop. Their top pick: LoJack for Laptops, which costs $39.99 per year. (As it happens, there's currently a sale running that gives you two years for the price of one.) The big draw?
Once the laptop has been reported stolen the company's Theft Recovery Team takes over the process. They place forensic tools on the laptop that gather information much the way Laptop Cop does, but all the data goes to Absolute Software, not to the user. The company points out that by surreptitiously gathering data about the person using the laptop you may yourself be committing a privacy-related crime.I'll admit that I've never bothered with any anti-theft services myself, but after what just happened to my poor mother-in-law (she lost two laptops in the break-in), I now consider them essential. Even if you choose a freebie option like LockItTight or Prey, put something on there to improve your chances for recovery.
If you've ever had a laptop stolen (and/or recovered), tell us about it in the comments!
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