It
is a very sad event when your laptop is stolen. Then, you won't be incurring a
high price just to buy a new laptop; Because laptop theft is such a big risk
factor that it poses a threat to your digital security as far as conceivable.
Private and family photos, passwords for all your accounts on all websites,
especially banking internet passwords, and your business data, for example, all
of these data will be in the possession of your laptop.
Read
this report to learn how to prepare yourself by keeping your laptop in advance,
and ways to protect your data after it falls into the hands of these thieves.
How do you prepare for the theft of your laptop?
Life
is so rosy in the eyes of the vast majority of us as human beings that we would
never imagine that our laptops could be stolen. Unfortunately, this can happen
to any of us as long as he goes out of the house with his laptop. It is
important and necessary to take all precautions and measures that can make us
in control of the security of our data. The most important thing is to take
these measures as long as we have our laptops. These precautions only make
laptop theft a financial loss, not informational either. Below we explain the
steps you should take.
Encrypt your data
You
can encrypt your internal hard drive so that no thieves can access your
sensitive information such as saved passwords or credit card information - for
example - even if they really open your laptop's front.
If
your laptop is running on the Windows platform, it is better to take a few
minutes to activate and configure BitLocker encryption system settings, which
will enable you to encrypt your laptop's internal disks. At the stage of
setting up BitLocker you will need to create a password, so include uppercase
and lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers in that word. It's best not to
leave that word in a notebook or local blog post on your laptop. It is best to
write it on an external piece of paper by hand and hide it somewhere no one
knows.
And
how to activate BitLocker, open Settings from the Start menu and search within
Settings for Control Panel. Inside Control Panel search for BitLocker. After
the search results appear, choose Manage BitLocker and follow the instructions
on the screen to complete the activation. There are a few requirements
BitLocker needs to be enabled. When it is confirmed that these requirements are
met, the encryption will be completed.
In
the event that you are confident of encryption through a third-party
intermediary, you can count on Absolute Home & Office formerly known as
LoJack. This service offers many options, from encrypting your laptop's storage
disk to the ability to remotely delete the data available on the laptop.
Back up your data
You
should back up your data, and update it regularly so that your files are not
lost forever if your internal storage drive gets corrupted or your entire
laptop is stolen. There are many possible scenarios in which your important
files stored on your hard drive will be corrupted or lost. You can take a
backup of your data in two ways: manual and professional. A manually drawn copy
depends on you manually moving your files to a different storage media, such as
an external HDD or SSD.
As
for the professional method, it revolves around the use of some external
software specialized in making backup copies for users, including operating
system files, and not just the usual files of videos and photos. There are many
services that will help you in this matter, perhaps the most prominent of them
are: Acronis True Image or Aomei Backupper Standard.
Activate the tracking feature
On
macOS laptops, there is a feature called Find My, which you can activate to run
the geolocation device and find out the location of the stolen laptop remotely.
On Windows, this feature is called Find My Device. You can turn on this feature
on Windows laptops by pressing the Start button and then selecting Settings.
When
you open Settings, click on the Update & Security section, which will
appear at the bottom center of the Settings window. After clicking on this
section, another window will appear. Like below.
When
that window appears, click on Find My Device at the bottom left. When you click
on this option, another new window will appear, at the top of which you will
find "Find My Device", and below it several lines explaining what
this function is and how it works. All you have to do is press the Change
button. A small window will appear with the phrase “Save my device’s location
periodically” meaning “Save my device’s location periodically.” Activate the
power button to be blue as seen in the image above.
What do you do after your laptop is stolen?
As
mentioned above, and as you will see below, you have prepared enough for the
unfortunate event of your laptop being stolen. The next steps revolve around
locating your stolen laptop, then informing the relevant institutions of this
matter, and then searching for the best solutions to protect your data,
whatever it is. Below we will remind you of the details about the steps of each
of the aforementioned destinations.
First: Track down the location of the stolen laptop
Did
you enable the laptop tracking feature in the Windows settings that we talked
about above? If yes, you will be able to track down the location of your stolen
laptop. Head over to this page to show all the devices linked and
activated to your Microsoft account. Log in to your account by entering the
email address associated with it and the correct password.
Click
on the Find My Device tab at the top as in the picture, you will find a list of
devices associated with your account, choose the appropriate device that has
been stolen. Next, click on Find to search for it on Maps. After clearly
showing its location on Maps, you will have the option to Lock the device and
not allow anyone else to use it until you unlock it, which brings us to the
next step.
Second: Notify the relevant institutions
Report
the police immediately, and go to the nearest police station. Tell them exactly
what happened to you, where the theft happened, and any descriptions you might
remember of who stole your laptop. After that, the officer in charge will take
your official details and your phone number to follow the developments of this
matter - if any - with you. After that, ask him to get the record number of the
report of that incident and a copy of the record.
After
that, go directly to your bank, which the thief is supposed to try to access
using your account name and password saved on your laptop browser. Report it
for theft, and change the access permissions and keys with the relevant
department of the bank. Give them a copy of the police report so the matter can
be documented. After that, ask the bank staff to inform you of any attempt to
access your account through your stolen laptop.
If
you got the stolen laptop from the organization where you work, it must be
insured. Send a copy of the report to the insurance company to take the
necessary measures and compensate you after mentioning the circumstances of the
matter and making sure that your laptop was actually and genuinely stolen.
Third: Protect your private data
We
mentioned above that there are ways to find lost devices, and we mentioned ways
to activate these tracking mechanisms. So, if you are an Apple device user, you
should head over to the Find My app and do a full wipe of the data on your
stolen device. In the same way, complete this command on your Windows device as
we mentioned in the Microsoft interface for managing your devices associated
with your Microsoft account.
If
you've ever used the above-mentioned Acronis True Image or Aomei Backupper
Standard services, remember that they'll be able to do it for you, too, with
efficiency that will surprise you.
Fourth: Change your passwords
After
your laptop is stolen, the thief will surely try to access all your accounts on
all platforms whose passwords are stored previously. Set up and create
completely new passwords for each account. If you use a password manager such
as 1Password, LastPass, or Dashlane, delete all passwords available in the
interface of that service, disassociate their trust with the device stolen from
you, and change the passwords afterward.
Fifth: Disable autofill for passwords
If
you are using the Chrome browser, and you have saved all your passwords and
accounts in password fields, the thief will not know about this at first sight.
But it will know as soon as you open the login page of which website you have
an account. When you open the login page, Chrome may automatically sign you
into your account on any website by itself.
Immediately
head over to the three dots at the top right of your Chrome browser and click
Settings. After that, click on the Passwords tab, which is concerned with
saving and managing the passwords that you already have stored in your Google
account on the Chrome browser. After that, you will see the Auto Sign-in option
as in the image above. Deactivate this option immediately.
Sixth: remote logout
If
you're using Chrome, Firefox, or even Safari, there are options to sign out for
all of your devices that you're signed in to later. Remote logout of the Chrome
browser, for example, may help log out of your stolen laptop. This will help
reduce your data losses as much as possible.
You
can complete this by managing your devices on the Apple or Google platform,
selecting the stolen device, and clicking on log out remotely. Thus, when any
of those logged-out devices are connected to the Internet, the log-out will be
activated immediately.
When
your laptop is stolen, it is logical and expected to feel angry, panicked, and
upset. If you act in this way, you may lose the physical value of the device,
along with your other data and information available on it. It is best to think
calmly and act wisely to ensure that you do not lose anything besides the
monetary value of your stolen laptop.