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Fri, Feb 23, 2007 11:01 EST
Do You Need LoJack for Laptops?
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Posted by: Laurianne McLaughlin Topic: InfrastructureBlog: Inside Tech
Current Rating: |
Maybe you’ve seen this disappearing act. If you’re an enterprise that leases notebook PCs, about 15 percent of your machines may “drift” away over the course of two years, never to be returned to IT. Did that make you wrinkle your brow? It should have. A certain number of mobile assets have always been lost, yet it’s been a loss that many enterprises chose to eat. That is, before data breach laws put a whole new spin on this equation. Now notebook drift can equal serious legal and financial pain when the data on those machines also vanishes. As Absolute Software CEO John Livingston puts it “Only because of the data breach laws has anyone started to care.”
What’s the right answer to notebook drift for your enterprise? That’s a question you should be asking now, if you haven't already.
His company compares its Computrace notebook-locating services to “LoJack for Laptops.” Absolute has struck deals with the major notebook vendors (Dell, Lenovo, Gateway, HP and others) to embed its firmware in each machine’s BIOS. In other words, the capability sits there in many notebooks today, ready to be turned on, if an enterprise customer activates the service (via their notebook vendor, for $125 for 3 years before volume discounting.)
How does the technology work? After a customer calls to report a missing notebook, the company’s servers wait for the lost machine to go online. When it does, the company uses IP addresses to locate the lost notebook. It contacts ISPs to get billing addresses for the corresponding IP addresses, gets subpoenas if necessary, and works with local law enforcement to physically recover the machines. That’s not a foolproof method, since many consumer IP addresses are variable every time someone goes online. Also, people can use Internet cafes or wireless connections. Still, Livingston says they have about a 75% success rate physically recovering the machines. (The company’s service is active on more than one million notebooks today, about 43% of which belong to corporate customers. The company also sells to the consumer, education and government markets.)
For most CIOs, though, the key worry is not getting the machine back. It’s proving the data on the machine didn’t go anywhere.
Thus, a second component of the service lets an enterprise customer remotely trigger a wipe of the lost machine’s hard drive, when the machine goes online. The customer does this using an RSA security token: He also gets a snapshot of the machine’s file system and an audit trail as to whether the machine’s sensitive files were accessed, before doing a wipe. (According to Computrace, it’s a Department of Defense grade wipe.)
This brings us to the question I always ask when government agency or corporate notebooks disappear, then make the news: Why aren’t more of these machines encrypted in the first place? To date, some enterprises have viewed encryption as too much of a management hassle, though I suspect with every high-profile data loss, that view becomes more outdated. (For more on how your peers are making mobile encryption manageable, see “How to Protect Your Mobile Data” in our sister publication, CSO.)
If you do encrypt, do you still need some remote wipe capability? When you encrypt, some problems remain. An employee who has just left, or is about to leave, the company may need to have his hard drive wiped, pronto.
So, what are you doing new this year to protect and track your enterprise’s notebooks? How many of your notebooks “drift” away? Let’s talk about what’s working for you and your peers -- before you have to talk with your CEO, or your city’s newspaper.
Rating:
Do not buy Lo-Jack for laptops! It is a big joke of a program. They can not find your computer, and even with an address, they refuse to communicate with officers in your local area, so, even though everyone knows where your computer is, no one will go get it. And the money back guarantee? That has one of those lovely loopholes so that no one gets their money back. "From the time we open your case, if we do not find it in 30 days, we give you your money back" (or something like that). The funny thing is, they will not "open" your case until the have enough information to make an arrest. So they will just never open your case (even after you report it!) and they will never have to give you your money back.
For example :Guy steals girl's computer. She reports it to the officers and to lo-jack. He is online, using her email address on her computer (she was not too bright and had it to automatically log in). From emails, girl find out the guy's name, attorney, girlfriend, grandma, etc. Reports it to officers and lo-jack. Lo jack says "We have picked up your computer at a location, but have not yet opened your case." cops say "We don't quite know where he is" No one does anything. Lojack never opens the case, so they don't have to give you your money back. Cops say "Too bad, good thing it was only a computer" Yeah, a $2,000 computer that I bought for work that I still owe $1680 on. Just a computer.
In conclusion, do not buy this product. It gives you false hope and wastes your money. Thanks for your time.
Rating:
Computrace Complete is a very unique product, and I have to admit one of the most interesting security related products I have seen in years. I am astounded at what the product can do. The customer support and response time have been about the best I have ever seen. I would thoroughly recommend this product to anyone interested in asset recovery, especially remote data delete, and improving asset tracking.
There are many additional peripheral perks of Computrace Complete. It has so many extra uses, and are terrific value add justifications to the product. Some I had not even thought of until we deployed it through the enterprise on all laptops. This is truly a great product that does exactly what it says it does, and more. It has proven itself 100% effective to my company. I am a 100% satisfied customer now and for the future. I am so impressed by this product that it will be first on my list of tasks to accomplish at any other establishments I work for in the future.
Great work on developing a great product. I could not have accomplished what I have without the fantastic account support from R. Welton and sales from W. Young. Top shelf product, top shelf account support and sales team. I completely recommend this product to anyone thinking about investing in Computrace Complete from Absolute Software.
DM
Rating:
We use Computrace on all our notebooks as a standard. We have never had to have one recovered or use the data delete service. We did use it for something we never thought of. Employees here are allowed to purchase items and take advantage of some of our discounts. One was a notebook purchased for their collage bound child. Turns out their child whom had never been in any kind of trouble decided to not return to school, and went missing. The child had taken a notebook purchased though our company with them. Using Computrace we were able to locate the State and Town of were she had run off to.
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Being a rural farming community, we have many migrant students that come and go with the harvest. Computrace has allowed us to feel secure in issuing laptops to all students 6th-12th grade. We have purchased Computrace on all student/faculty laptops in our district, and it has been such a great asset.
Before we got Computrace, tracking down a laptop was knocking on the door of the child's house. Now we can log into the Computrace web interface and see the IP/ISP where the laptop was last logged on.
Much thanks to R. Welton and the entire team at Computrace for making such a great product.
MJ
Rating:
As the Asset Management Manager for an accounting firm, having the Computrace Complete loaded on all leased firm PCs is a no brainer. It to me is imperative to have this utility installed on systems, providing that added security. We have been able to not only locate stolen equipment, but also have had individuals arrested for the theft. All I can say is, if you dont have it, get it.
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