College Crunch

While the prices of laptops are continually dropping, the value of the data that we store on our laptops is continually rising as we use them as our primary computers more often than ever before.

1.) Lock

Keeping your laptop from getting stolen in the first place is obviously job one. And the one way to seriously hinder any attempt and swiping it is to literally lock it to something immobile and/or make it heavy enough to be annoying to drag.

Physical laptop locks come in many forms, but they pretty much all work on the same principle as a bike lock: tie the thing to something else that can’t easily be carried away, be it a desk, a park bench, your ankle, or whatever. If it’s heavy enough to make a quick getaway impossible, a potential thief will think twice before even bothering to try.

Like any lock system, some are better than others; some have alarms that sound if the cable is tampered with, and other such extras. You really do get what you pay for, so the pricier a laptop lock is, chances are the more secure it is too.

Sadly, the similarity to bike locks doesn’t end at the design. Most of them are also notoriously easy to open, even the most expensive and fancy ones. If the thief does their homework on the type of lock you use, and has a moment or three to play with it while you’re not looking they can find ways to open it.

It is a lot better than nothing, but I still wouldn’t leave it unattended for long.

2.) Applications

The reality of the situation is, if your laptop is out of your sight for any amount of time, and someone really wants it, they will be able to take it, so protecting your precious data is very important.

Some people will suggest the first thing you should do with any new laptop is change the BIOS password. Those people don’t know what they are babbling about. Anyone with five minutes and an Internet connection can learn everything they need to change or remove that BIOS password, so it is essentially useless these days.

Instead, I would highly recommend a third party security encryption program to deal with that. My favorite by far is TrueCrypt. It can encrypt just certain files or partitions, entire drives, or your whole system. We aren’t talking easily broken encryption here either; we’re talking up to three layers security, each using a different 256 bit encryption algorithm.

It’s also free, so there’s no reason not to get the added security.

There are also a slew of other programs that do everything from e-mailing you with webcam photos if your laptop is stolen so you can give a picture of the thief to the police, to sounding annoying alarms when the machine is moved, to any number of other simple theft deterrent things.

Just use Google to search for “laptop theft protection” and you will be amazed at how many great programs there are to help you make stealing your laptop a bad idea.

3.) Services

There are a number of services that you can subscribe to as a sort of insurance in case your laptop does get stolen. Some are more proactive than others.

For example there is Stop Theft. They give you a little plate that sticks to your laptop that helps identify it if it’s found by the police, as well as deter theft in the first place since it makes it near impossible to resell without the buyer knowing it was stolen. Just watch the video to see how hard it is to get that little plate off.

There is also services like CyberAngel that offer subscription based protection in way of doing everything they can to track down your laptop if it’s stolen. Packed with software aimed at figuring out where in the world your laptop ends up so the authorities can recover it for you. Those types of services can get pricey, but if you’ve got some sensitive data you can’t afford to lose on that laptop, it could well be worth it.

4.) Passwords

This should be obvious, but a good password is probably more important on a laptop than anywhere else. It also tends to be the weakest link in the security chain for most people.

A good password should have upper and lowercase letters, numbers, and maybe a symbol or four in there for good measure.

It should look something like 4Ha@pT9e.

Never use any variation on your name, anything that has something to do with the laptop itself, or any word from a dictionary. If you do, you’re just begging someone to figure it out or use a password cracking program to find it.

If you really want a good password, there are some websites that make it easy to generate good random passwords. The best I’ve found is the PC Tools Password Generator. It allows you to generate any sort of password you could want.

The tricky bit will be remembering it, and if you write it down somewhere you will only be creating a security risk, in that anyone that gets their hands on that paper will have access to whatever you used the password on, so making sure to have a variety of passwords as it can limit the amount of exposure any one security breach can make.

Conclusion

Long story short, if someone really really wants your laptop, they are going to take it. All you can do is make it as undesirable as possible and hope they don’t want the trouble. The best thing you can do is just to keep an eye on your laptop. Don’t let it out of your sight when out in public, ever. But if you absolutely have to, lock it to something and be back quick. If it ends up stolen, and you followed all of my advice, then at least your data will be safe, and you will have a shot at getting it back.