How to Implement a Laptop Anti-Theft Program

Overview

As an IT professional, you probably suspect that your company loses a laptop occasionally. But if you actually tracked your laptops, you’d likely be much more alarmed. Research shows that the average company loses between ten and twenty percent of their laptops within their service lifetime. For a business with 1,000 laptops, this means up to 200 devices could go missing within three years, each potentially loaded with sensitive corporate data and applications.

If that number raised your eyebrows (and your stress level), you’re not alone — device loss is an issue plaguing IT professionals, CISOs, and MSPs across the globe. And it’s important to address this liability with a robust laptop anti-theft program to secure your organization’s equipment and protect sensitive business and customer data from unauthorized access.

In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at laptop anti-theft programs — what they are and why you’d want to implement one. We’ll also discuss how to implement a device anti-theft program, why you should have anti-theft software at the center of your program, and specific features you should look for.

What is a Laptop Anti-Theft Program?

An effective laptop anti-theft program is a comprehensive suite of measures, policies, and systems designed to protect your organization’s mobile assets. Specifically, it:

• Prevents laptop theft:  Preventive measures serve as the cornerstone of an anti-theft program. These can include anything from physical security devices — like a cable lock that secures the laptop to an immovable object — to visual deterrents like security stickers that discourage theft by indicating that the laptop can be tracked.
  
• Logs laptop activity and access: Another way to help prevent laptop theft is by keeping a close eye on the laptop’s usage, including logging access attempts and tracking the laptop’s location through IP logging and user activity. In a corporate environment, this may involve detailed logging of network access times, attempted and successful logins, and the execution of specific applications. By logging activity and access, you can effectively create an audit trail that you can use to trace the laptop’s activity before and after a theft.
  
• Gives you options when laptop theft occurs:  In the event of a theft, a comprehensive anti-theft program gives you several tools for mitigating the damage and potentially recovering the stolen asset. For example, some anti-theft software might include remote kill capabilities, allowing you to encrypt sensitive information completely so unauthorized individuals can’t access it.
  

Other software will enable you to remotely lock the laptop (rendering it unusable), display a message to the person who found (or stole) the laptop, or even automatically take action when a laptop leaves a geofence. And location tracking features can help pinpoint your laptop’s location, assisting law enforcement in recovery efforts.

Reasons to Implement a Laptop Anti-Theft Program

There are several important reasons to implement a laptop anti-theft program at your organization.

• You’re Losing More Laptops Than You Think
  There’s a good chance that you’re completely underestimating the number of laptops your organization loses every year. The reality is that you don’t know what you don’t know; until you measure the problem, you have no idea how big it really is.
  
  As previously mentioned, companies lose, on average, between 10% and 20% of laptops in service. And that number can be even higher if you:
  • Have a highly mobile or remote workforce — common in many industries, including home-based healthcare and field-based or site-based service providers.
  • Have a large or variable contract workforce like the construction or defense industry.
• Your Laptops Can Be Used Against You
  The corporate laptop is a veritable treasure trove of internal information, making it the favored target for cybercriminals of all stripes. Tellingly, some of the world’s most notorious WikiLeaks breaches have involved a corporate laptop. In the wrong hands, it can become an extremely dangerous tool. After all, it’s got all sorts of stuff that cybercriminals can use to gain unauthorized access, steal information, and generally wreak havoc, including:
  • Company documents and data: Corporate laptops frequently contain proprietary business information, including internal reports, financial records, strategic plans, and confidential employee or customer information. If cybercriminals gain access to this data, they can use it for competitive espionage, sell it to the highest bidder, or leverage it for phishing attacks and scams. And the unauthorized disclosure of such information can erode trust with customers and partners, tank your reputation, and lead to financial loss and legal action.
  • Employee login credentials:  Access credentials stored on laptops (e.g., saved usernames and passwords) are the proverbial keys to the kingdom for cybercriminals. With these credentials, attackers can gain unauthorized access to your corporate networks, databases, email accounts, and more.
  • URLs and IPs for corporate IT resources, such as VPN profiles: Often, corporate laptops contain information about internal IT resources, like VPN profiles, server IPs, and intranet URLs — and gaining access to this information can help an attacker map your company’s network infrastructure and identify potential vulnerabilities. With this inside knowledge, cybercriminals can launch targeted attacks, including denial of service (DoS), malware infiltration, and data exfiltration efforts.
  • Saved passwords: Many users rely on password management software — or click “yes” when their browser asks, “Do you want to save this password?” If attackers access these vaults or saved passwords, they can easily impersonate users across multiple services, accessing critical cloud-based applications, financial accounts, and sensitive data. A single hacked password vault can lead to a cascade of security breaches across your organization’s services.
• Deter Theft Before it Happens
  Studies have shown that the mere presence of a security camera is effective at deterring crime. Likewise, having a laptop anti-theft system in place can help deter cybercrime. With an anti-theft system in place, you can uncover near-miss crimes that will allow you to pinpoint areas where you need to improve security.
• Disk Encryption is Not Enough
  Certainly, full disk encryption offers ample protection against the damage a third party can do if they find (or steal) your laptop. Without the necessary employee login credentials, they won’t be able to access the data.
  
  But disk encryption is far less effective against internal theft, as the threat comes from inside your organization, where the internal actors already have access to the keys. Given the fact that 70% of laptop thefts involve a former employee or contractor, it’s easy to see why disk encryption isn’t the one-size-fits-all solution it’s often made out to be.
• You Can’t Afford a Data Breach
  Data breaches happen more often than you realize. Consider this: a lost, unencrypted laptop is a data breach. A lost encrypted laptop in the hands of a malicious insider is a data breach. A lost encrypted laptop in the hands of a third party is a potential data breach. And if any corporate laptop falls outside of your control, you may be required to send a data breach notification to customers.
  
  Your company’s most valuable asset is its reputation. And a major data breach can decimate your business’ reputation in a matter of moments, damaging your company’s brand irreparably — not to mention costing you thousands (or millions) of dollars to clean up after the dust settles.
• Your Boss Expects It
  The C-suite at your organization relies on IT to perform its duties while managing risk. They assume (and expect) that one of your core tasks is monitoring, protecting, and locking down corporate laptops. And if you’re an MSP, guess what? Your clients expect the same thing. They see laptop protection as a “given” — a basic capability they assume you offer.

How to Implement a Laptop Anti-Theft Program

There are numerous reasons to implement laptop anti-theft protection — but how do you make it happen? For the best results, take a defense-in-depth approach. Like a formidable fortress with multiple rings of walls, your laptop anti-theft system should have multiple layers, including physical protection, data and authentication protection, and laptop anti-theft software.

Physical Protection

Implementing physical protection strategies is essential in safeguarding corporate laptops from theft and unauthorized access. Strategies include:

• Asset tagging:  Tagging assets with physical barcode labels or metal plates clearly marks them as inventoried and monitored equipment, which may help deter thieves. Asset tags can be integrated with your asset management system, allowing you to quickly notice if an item has gone missing.
• Physical locks: If your laptop is used in a public or unattended area, physical locks (like cable locks) secure devices to a stationary object, making it significantly harder for opportunistic thieves to steal them. Thieves looking for easy targets are likely to bypass a laptop that requires an additional effort to steal, meaning that the mere presence of a physical lock can act as a deterrent.
• Security cameras:  The risk of being recorded makes thieves think twice before attempting to steal laptops in areas under surveillance. Security camera footage can identify perpetrators and potential weaknesses in your facilities.

Data and Authentication Protection

Data and authentication protection are another layer in your organization’s laptop defense. Protection strategies include:

• Disk encryption:  Encryption ensures that data stored on a laptop’s hard drive is encrypted and can only be decrypted with the correct key — typically a password. This means that if a laptop is stolen or lost, its data remains inaccessible to unauthorized users. Even if the hard drive is removed and placed into another device, the data cannot be read without the encryption key.
• Strong passwords and MFA:  While disk encryption is a robust security measure, its effectiveness is contingent upon the strength of the authentication mechanisms that protect the encryption key. Strong, complex passwords are much harder for attackers to guess or crack than simple ones.
  
  Multi-factor authentication adds an additional layer of security by requiring two or more verification methods to gain access to the device — something you know (like a password), something you have (like a smartphone app or token), or something you are (like a fingerprint or facial recognition). This significantly reduces the risk of unauthorized access, even if the password is compromised.
• Brute force protection:  Brute force attacks attempt to gain access to a system by trying every possible combination of passwords until the correct one is found. By implementing account lockout policies or delay mechanisms after a certain number of failed login attempts, organizations can effectively thwart these attacks.

Laptop Anti-Theft Software

We’ve explored some defensive measures you can take to protect your organization. Now, let’s go on offense. The right laptop anti-theft software will give you the real-time insights, tools, and countermeasures you need to respond to any security incident. Additionally, anti-theft software protects your assets against all potential bad actors — outsiders as well as insiders.

Features to Look For

As you’re exploring laptop anti-theft software, ensure that any vendor you’re considering offers these features:

Laptop Tracking

Your laptop anti-theft solution should include laptop tracking and monitoring capabilities. This will give you better information and response options to a security incident. By tracking usage and authentication patterns, you can also gather intelligence that allows you to uncover near-misses and make ongoing security improvements. You should also be able to use multiple methods to locate laptops and other devices, including Wifi triangulation, GPS, cellular triangulation, and IP-geo databases.

The tracking component should record any login activity. It should also generate notifications when an undesired activity occurs, like a geofence violation or extended offline time.

Full Disk Encryption Management

Nearly a third of all data theft occurs at the hands of third parties outside of your organization. That’s why you should insist that your anti-theft software include full disk encryption management, preferably via OS-native encryption like Windows BitLocker and macOS FileVault. Your software should allow you to manage both BitLocker and FileVault within a single console.

Central Backup of Recovery Keys and Certificates

Your anti-theft software needs to fit into your workflow, helping you do your job rather than impeding your efficiency. Ensure that the anti-theft software you choose allows for centralized management of your important security assets — like helping users with forgotten passwords. This will help maximize user productivity.

Anti-Theft Countermeasures

Most data theft — around 70% — occurs at the hands of insiders, e.g., terminated employees or contractors. And advanced cybercriminals who can bypass OS authentication make up yet another potential threat vector. The best anti-theft software includes tactical anti-theft countermeasures, giving you a range of options to choose from when addressing an emerging security incident. Here’s what you should look for:

• Hardware lockdown: Locking down the hardware makes the device unusable while promoting the return of equipment with ‘Return To’ instructions. One way to achieve this is to lock out the OS’s boot loader with a lock screen displaying a custom message — typically one that instructs the user, thief, or good samaritan to return the device to the organization.
  
• Data lockdown: A data lockdown allows you to selectively encrypt files, folders or file types with out-of-band encryption. Once the incident has been resolved, the encrypted data can be decrypted. Think of it as ransomware for the good guys.

Hardware and data lockdown countermeasures will help protect your data against insiders who already have access to full disk encryption credentials, hackers who can bypass OS authentication, and even as a fallback measure to protect unencrypted laptops.

Triggers and Presets

When choosing anti-theft software, ensure that its countermeasures are available on-demand, allowing you to respond to incidents in real time. But give additional consideration to anti-theft software that works on your behalf, automating countermeasures when certain triggers are fired.

For example, you may want to program your software to lockdown hardware or data when:

• A laptop leaves a predefined geofence
• A device enters a restricted country where privacy cannot be assured
• A device fails to connect to the cloud for a predefined amount of time

Conclusion

To meet the expectations of a modern IT organization, implementing a robust device anti-theft program isn’t an option; it’s a necessity. By putting a multifaceted system in place, you’ll be preventing theft and arming yourself with the tools, intelligence, and insights to keep your devices (and the sensitive data they hold) safe from threats. You’ll also lose fewer laptops, making protecting your organization’s reputation and bottom line easier. And if, despite your best efforts, a threat occurs? With a robust anti-theft program in place, you have a variety of response options at your disposal rather than being caught completely off guard.

By implementing a laptop anti-theft program, you’re taking steps toward safeguarding your assets — and ensuring your organization stays at least one step ahead of cybercriminals (and plain old thieves).

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