laptop anti-theft 3

[hinesward]

Does anybody have any experience with any of those laptop anti-theft services? Does anyone have any recommendations or suggestions on what to avoid? How do these services work?

 

[Noway2]

I don't have any experience with an anti-theft service, but if you have a laptop that has a higher probability of being stolen, e.g. travels a lot, you might want to consider keeping all of your data in an encrypted volume with a STRONG password. In cases like that I might even go as far as encrypting the entire HD, which is something that I would normally avoid. Iron Mountain makes a product called data defense that is oriented towards enterprise solutions where the encryption is key based with remote control of the process.

The problem with theft, even if there is a chance of recovery is the old adage 'physical access equals root access'. In other words, you would never be able to fully trust the machine again. Given that they would have physical access to the machine, even wiping and re-installing the system may not be sufficient.

 

[hinesward]

1. Your answer is a total non sequitir and has nothing to do with the original question.

2. ALL laptops have a high probability of being stolen. It has nothing to do with how much they travel.

 

[Noway2]

Your answer is a total non sequitir and has nothing to do with the original question.

On the contrary, the product that I mentioned, Data Defense can and is used effectively as at least part of an anti-theft measure and is marketed as such. While it is not a location and retrieval service, it will effectively prevent someone from obtaining sensitive information on a stolen machine, which may be even more important than the hardware itself. I am sure that any clients or customers with their information would see it that way.

ALL laptops have a high probability of being stolen. It has nothing to do with how much they travel.

That statement is just obtuse. A PC that travels is far more likely to be accidentally left or stolen in an airport than one that remains cabled to a desk.

In any case, my apologies for trying to offer you a suggested solution that might solve your 'real' problem, which I admitted was tangential to your question.

 

[tcsbiz]

Well, I WAS going to give hinesward suggestions from experience that, IMO, would have been helpful. But, since he/she jumped all over Noway2, I think I'll pass.

 

[carp]

Ditto. Biting the hand that feeds is foolish at best. Don't ask a question if you don't want answers. And I could tell you where to stuff your non sequitur (BTW, if you cannot spell it, you might not want to use it!), but I suspect you can figure it out yourself. If not, just post another question.

 

[dialtonebone]

I was just about to second what ya'll said too. Maybe hinesward will be a little less rude next time.

 

[Noway2]

I looked over past replies and response from hinesward. Unfortunately, responses like this seem to be a consistent pattern of behavior. Quoting from another thread:

This whole exchange is just a sad reminder of how worthless discussion groups like these have become.

The above statement was followed by telling two members that their responses were worthless.

From reading through the posts, it is clear that s/he has a really difficult time with their job. I am certainly sympathetic to this and I suspect that they are lashing out in frustration. However, this behavior is unacceptable.

 

[hinesward]

First of all, in my 12 years of experience, I have seen five laptops get stolen. Four of them were taken from the company offices. One was taken from a hotel. So, I stand by my comment that "all laptops have a high probability of being stolen."

Norway2, I have certainly heard of the company Iron Mountain. They have a good reputation for the work they do.

I once worked with a guy whose car was stolen and recovered. He said: "When your car is stolen, you don't want it back." I naturally wonder if the same adage applies to laptops.

Still, this is what I meant by "anti-theft." I am looking for something that might help us get the laptop back if it is stolen. Lojack seems to be the name that comes up a lot. I would like to know more.

In fact, I think it was Lojack who said that one out of ten laptops will be stolen.

 

[lionelhill]

Actually if you read the review:

http://www.laptopreviews.org.uk/articles/lojack-tracker-laptops/

... it appears quite scary. If the review is true, it means that these people can potentially trace where your laptop is (provided it's turned on and within a hot-spot), and delete your data, by default, even if you never subscribed to their service and didn't ask for it to be installed! I find it hard to believe. If Google or Microsoft made claims like this review makes, the privacy people would be up in arms.

Someone tell me I'm wrong, please?

 

[PaulBricker]

I was just talking with one of the guys here in the office (not an IT guy). He said his son, who is just high school age, is thinking of getting into networking. I told him I thought he should add security to his list of studies because over the next 10 years I expect that jobs for IT security people will probably increase faster than most other jobs in that area.

Paul

 

[Noway2]

@PaulBricker - That's probably not a bad idea. One possibility to consider is that 'embedded systems' applications ranging from 8051 micros to full controllers has historically considered themselves immune. That is no longer the case, so there is a whole very large market that is now starting to go online and become aware of security.

@lionelhill - I read the review and I agree that the review reads this way. The application is installed in the BIOS of your laptop from the manufacturer and is enabled when you subscribe. A wipe of the hard drive will not remove it. This tells me that yes, in fact the technology is already in the machine to perform this function, should someone enable it. The question is, how many PCs have it in the chipset with it just being "turned off"?

This also raises the question of given an IP address, how easy is it to track the physical location? The IP address can be resolved to a provider and often times a generalized region. To get the location, they would need to contact the provider and track that information back to the network devices and their subscriber. What if it is a wifi hotspot in a very public location? Are they going to storm an air port looking for a laptop?

 

[ousoonerjoe]

Someone tell me I'm wrong, please?

How it works? A software called the Computrace Agent is installed in the laptop.
....
The LoJack software is built into the BIOS of the workstations. Hence, a reformat of the system or hard drive cannot affect it. This application comes built into most laptops directly from the manufacturers. People will have to subscribe to it to get it activated.

Yes and no. Based solely on the statements from the article, the BIOS comes with the compatibility installed by the manufacturer, but a software side application must be installed to activate/enable it. It does however pose an interesting question....

Can the BIOS hook be exploited and manipulated in an undesirable way? I would say... if an application that is installed can get to it, then yes, a virus, trojan, etc can get to it.

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“Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month.” --Wernher von Braun
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[kmcferrin]

To Hinesward's (perhaps rhetorical) question, I suspect that you wouldn't want your laptop back after it had been stolen. If it wasn't stripped for parts, you have no idea what could have been installed. At the very least you're going to want to completely wipe it, and if security is any kind of concern you'll want to install a completely new hard disk and dispose of the old one.

I suspect that most businesses are more concerned about making sure that their data isn't stolen, as the value of the data stored on the laptop can often be tens or hundreds of times the value of the hardware itself. The same is often the case with smartphones, which is why both types off hardware are increasingly having encryption and remote-wipe functionality installed from the factory. If your laptop/smartphone is stolen, the encryption can help protect your company from data leakage, and a remote wipe can ensure that any data stored on it is destroyed.

You might be surprised (or maybe not) by the amount of data you can recover from a second-hand PC, and a stolen PC is no different.



________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Server Administrator
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator
MCITP:Virtualization Administrator 2008 R2
Certified Quest vWorkspace Administrator

 

[lionelhill]

(1) It was the question of remote activation that bothered me.

The mechanism has to be quite clever. It must be possible to take control of a laptop that has been stolen, whatever has been done to it (e.g. hard-disk wiping), so once activated, it must be impossible to deactivate via software, or it must always remain possible to reactivate remotely. Note: commercially this means that if once you pay Lojack, they presumably retain the ability to nobble/trace your laptop for ever, even if you stop subscribing?

On the other hand, it should be impossible to activate remotely if the laptop has never been activated. Otherwise it's an obvious gaping security flaw waiting for someone to take advantage.

(2) If you report your laptop missing and ask for it to be remotely wiped, how do you know noone copied data before it next found itself online?

 

[kmcferrin]

If you report your laptop missing and ask for it to be remotely wiped, how do you know noone copied data before it next found itself online?

You don't. But if you use strong encryption in conjunction with remote wiping you can be more certain that useful data wasn't copied. I suppose that could also be another selling point of wireless data plans from mobile carriers. I think that most major manufacturers are offering the option of an integrated 3G radio chipset.

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Server Administrator
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator
MCITP:Virtualization Administrator 2008 R2
Certified Quest vWorkspace Administrator

 

[Noway2]

This is where the program that I first mentioned, Data Defense comes into play. It encrypts the contents of your hard drive, or selected portions of it. Using PKI techniques, it is unlocked by the user properly entering the password. It must also "phone home" at least periodically for authorization, and perhaps an updated private key. In this case, "home" is the parent organization owning the laptop not Iron Mountain.

If the wrong password is entered too many times, the system will assume that it has been stolen and will destroy the protected contents.

According to the IT manager at the company I worked at that used this program, Data Defense was the tool of choice the United States NSA for this purpose.

In a corporate environment, it makes sense to use a centrally manged system like this.

 

[lionelhill]

agreed entirely!