Upon arriving to work this morning I noticed some broken glass and a large hole in one of our office windows. On the other side of that hole was a vacant space where one of our computers should have been! Great way to start the day.
We lost a nice piece of hardware, but we were greatly relieved that absolutely no project or client data was lost. The machine was last used by our summer intern and was wiped clean in September. In a way, we got lucky...if one of our other machines were stolen, we'd be spending the remainder of the day changing passwords and writing apologetic letters to our clients.
Client data and security is something that we take very seriously and this experience had led me to do some research on security software. Here are two products worth mentioning:
Computrace LoJack for Laptops
Computrace LoJack for Laptops is part of a full suite of security solutions that protects your data and secures your computers. It's built in to the BIOS or firmware from major computer manufacturers to prevent removal by unauthorized users...and it's backed by a theft recovery team.
http://www.lojackforlaptops.com/
LocatePC
LocatePC is free software that runs unobtrusively on your computer. In the event that your computer is stolen, LocatePC will send a secret email to you containing the details that you need to track your hardware. Obviously, your computer must be hooked up to the Internet for this feature to work.
http://www.iconico.com/locatePC/
All of our laptops already have LoJack for Laptops installed. Looks like it's time to protect our towers as well.
