Securing Your Laptop

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• Always lock down your computer with physical locks and system passwords.
• Never leave a laptop unattended - even if you're only going to the bathroom. A few seconds is long enough for your laptop to walk off.
• Lock it to a large piece of furniture and make sure the cable cannot be removed by lifting up the furniture or removing a small part.
• Lock the door to your dorm room or office regularly.
• Write your name, address, and phone number on the equipment. Use an etcher to make it permanent.
• Write down your laptop's serial number. Keep a copy in your wallet and another in a safe place at home. If your laptop's ever stolen, you can easily report it to the police with the serial number they need to identify it.
• Write down your MAC address. This is your network hardware address, and can sometimes be useful in tracking down a stolen laptop.
• Secure your computer with a password and make sure you must login at startup. Use a password that does not contain merely letters but numbers and at least one special character. Do not use English words in the password to further complicate the hackers attempts to decode it. Change your password often and remember it, DO NOT write it down. Ensure that the screen saver has a password protection built into it and the screen saver is enabled whenever you leave the machine.
• It is a good idea to use encryption on your hard drive. Apple computers have this ability built into the Operating System. Windows users can encrypt some folder (check out our advanced documentation here), or buy 3rd party software or hardware tokens to do the same. Should the worst case happen, even if your hardware was stolen your data would be inaccessible.

For PC Laptops, the following utilities are available to trace your computer if stolen:

For Mac Laptops, the following utilities are available to trace your computer if stolen: