What Would You Do If You Lost Your Laptop?

According to one security software company, a laptop is stolen in this country every 53 seconds. The amount of dollar loss due to stolen/lost laptops could be lowered if every laptop owner took the proper precautions with their laptops.  If your laptop was lost, or was stolen what would you do? Is all your data and email backed up? Is your data secure? Probably, it's not. At the very least, you need a logon password. All a thief (or finder) has to do is boot up your laptop and they gain access to too much of what you don't want them into.

Don't think that your data is secure with a log on password. That can be wiped easily in minutes. These days, password protection isn't sufficient protection for your lost/stolen computer. If you are traveling via air and laptop is stolen, major damage can be done to your financial health before you even reach your destination.

You probably all read or heard about the student that took home without permission a laptop from his school. He hadn't paid the necessary fee and so the security software was activated and he was caught on webcam. Everyone was outraged that the school would be "violating" the student's rights. What if it were YOUR laptop? Then you might not feel so concerned about the rights of the person using the computer! Thumbs up to the school for deploying their laptops with protection. Thumbs down to the student who didn't follow his school's procedure.

There is laptop recovery software available that can send emails to the person using the computer. See this link for an example of such a program. http://preyproject.com/ This is an open-source (free) program.

Another program worth checking out is Laptop Sentry: http://www.laptopsentry.com/. Upon alarm activation, you are immediately sms'd information about your computer. Important files are emailed to you as well as IP information that you can provide to authorities to recover your laptop. It's not very expensive either and it can be used with blackberry and iPhone devices.  $5/month is a small price to pay for protecting all of your personal files, data and accounts.

If I were traveling a lot with my laptop, I definitely would invest in some time of laptop security software to protect my files and accounts.