Absolute recently received a theft report concerning a laptop that a salesman claimed had been 'stolen from his vehicle.'  Soon after the 'crime' the computer logged onto the Internet and began checking in with our monitoring center.  This allowed our theft recovery team to extract information on the computer’s unauthorized user and location.  Guess where the computer turned up?  It was still in the hands of the user who claimed it was stolen!  He had falsely filed a theft report so he could keep the computer for himself.

You can read more of the story here:

http://blog.absolute.com/absolute-recovers-laptop-from-clever-thief/

This scenario brings up an interesting issue for those deploying laptops equipped with Intel's AT-p anti-theft technology.  Do you tell your users it's deployed?  Or keep its existence as much of a secret as you can?

In this example, informing this user that AT-p was deployed would likely have prevented the 'theft' of this laptop.  The salesman, realizing his laptop would have been rendered useless by means of a poison pill or a timer rundown, probably wouldn't have 'stolen' it in the first place.

However, the 'theft' resulted in the removal of a bad apple from this company - The one silver lining in this unfortunate incident.

So the question is this: When you deploy AT-p in your company, will you tell your employees it's there?

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Please note that any indictments and criminal complaints referenced in this post are merely unproven accusations, and the accused, in all cases, are innocent until proven guilty.

People often say to me - "I've got encryption, so I'm protected," or "I always use a laptop lock," so I'm protected.

In response I always remind them that laptop security should be looked at like a three-legged stool.  If any of the three legs are missing, the stool falls over (unless the person on the stool is a member of the Beijing Circus, but that's a rare exception).

What are the three legs?

The first leg is Physical Security, like a laptop lock and/or an alarm on your laptop bag.  If you're leaving your machine, lock it down!

The second leg is Data Protection like encryption.  If your machine does get out of your control and someone nefarious removes your hard drive, you can be "reasonably" confident they won't get at your data.  (I say "reasonably" because we've all seen the laptops at airports on in presentations where the password is written on a sticky note stuck to the machine!)

The third and final leg on the stool is a Protection Solution like AT-p.  If your machine fails to check in to the monitoring center after a certain length of time then presto it bricks.  Or if you know your machine is lost you can send it a poison pill and lock it down.

How many legs does your stool have?

Hey, you guys, those of you makin’ like you’re part of the décor in an airport lounge or imitating camouflage behind a fern in a hotel lobby waiting for some mark to get distracted so you can lift his laptop. I’m going to save you some major grief. I’m feeling like a snitch doing this since I’m an Intel flack, but even criminals deserve an inside tip once in awhile. So, listen up, swifty. Before you slip ‘n slide that notebook under your trench coat, look it up and down carefully. If it says Lenovo Thinkpad T400 anywhere on it just put it back and save yourself a raft of frustration. Here’s the inside skinny: Absolute Software, Lenovo and Intel ganged up to develop this diabolical security stuff that’s … well, I was going to say almost criminal. They took these Lenovo ThinkPad T400 notebooks and booby-trapped ‘em with Intel’s new Anti-Theft PC Protection and Absolute’s Computrace technology. Here’s what’s gonna happen if you’re a sucker enough to boost one of these units. First thing you’re gonna do is turn it on to see if you can crack the password. These guys are just waiting for you to do that. They’re probably standing behind the other fern laughing their beanies off. After a few missed tries this notebook’s going to shut down like an iron door on the hole. It won’t do nothin’. It becomes a brick. Good luck tryin’ to hawk that. It’s because of this Intel Anti-Theft PC Protection. But let’s say you’re smart enough not to try to crack the password. Instead, you’re sitting there admiring the family of five on the screensaver trying to figure out what it will go for on eBay when WHAM! the thing shuts down. Won’t turn back on or nothin’. That’s ‘cause of Absolute’s Computrace. What happened was that soon as the mark saw his computer flew the coop, he called the guys at Absolute and they fixed their servers, so as soon as that computer came online, they sent it a poison pill through the Internet and that laptop became, yep, a brick. You’d do life for sending a poison pill, but these mugs got good lawyers and get away with it. But let’s say you’re a real Einstein, and you’re casing the airport parking lot and see some stiff shove one of those T400s in his trunk, grab his suitcase and head for the terminal. You’re figuring he’s gonna be gone for days, long enough to fence that T400 before he even knows it’s gone. So, you’re hanging out in a back alley, whispering “Hey, you wanna good computer cheap?” to every Joe that strolls by, until you finally hook some patsy. But you hit the button to turn it on and nothing happens. Yeah, you guessed it. You’re peddling that brick, again. This is because these Lenovo, Absolute, Intel guys covered that angle, too. Turns out the pigeon’s computer geniuses at the office set that ThinkPad T400 so it has to check in regularly, like it’s on parole. If it misses even once, it gets the poison pill treatment thanks to Computrace and Intel Anti-theft PC Protection, and, of course, dem guys at Lenovo who stick that stuff into those ThinkPad T400s in the first place. In the end, filching these rigged T400s will drive you crazy. Worse than being in the cooler. I know what you’re thinking, I’ll just grab another brand of computer. All I can say is, Are ya feelin’ lucky, punk? ‘Cause Lenovo is gonna be putting this Computrace and Anti-Theft PC Protection in their other computers. And, well, this ain’t no exclusive deal, if you know what I mean. So, before you do something stupid, my pal Josh Hilliker spills all the beans here. Check it out and save yourself some time…maybe hard time, not to mention saving you’s from going crazy frustratin’ yourself.