On 4 Feb 2014 at 17:12, David McSpadden wrote: > Looking for some kind of LoJack software for my Laptops at work. > Maybe even some better Whole drive encryption software.
There's a choice there. LoJack-type software like the Prey Project (http://preyproject.com/) will only phone home if the computer is on and connected to the Internet. If you have WDE and the thief can't boot the system, the phone-home software doesn't get loaded. True LoJack for Laptops has the ability to reinstall itself iff (a) the laptop gets nuked and Windows is reinstalled and (b) you had a laptop with a built-in LoJack-reloading BIOS. Business-grade Lenovos (i.e. ThinkPads), Dells, and HPs may have that available. Home-grade laptops (e.g. Lenovo Ideapads) probably don't. Here's good advice from Prey: FAQ - Prey http://preyproject.com/faq And what if they format the computer? That´s a different story. We encourage you to add a BIOS password and disable booting from removable devices on your PC, so that the thief will be forced to boot into the previous installation and thus, not be able to format your hard disk easily. All the password-resetters I know of require booting from USB or CD/DVD. A BIOS password (with or without WDE) would prevent any access to the system. But if you don't have WDE, they can pull the hard drive, install it in another computer, and use one of many tools to change the administrator password, then put it back in your laptop where they will have full admin access to your system and data. They could then uninstall Prey or any other software and grab your files. The choice may be between controlling your data with WDE or getting your hardware back with Prey, LoJack, or something similar. -- Angus Scott-Fleming GeoApps, Tucson, Arizona 1-520-290-5038 Security Blog: http://geoapps.com/
