Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community  

Go Back   Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community > Interests > Tilted Technology


 
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
Old 10-06-2007, 11:00 PM   #1 (permalink)
I flopped the nutz...
 
mikec's Avatar
 
Location: Stratford, CT
laptop security/theft recovery

I've been talking with some people in my company about laptop security ...we exclusively use dell laptops.

We need some additional security in place because of the potential for laptops to be stolen. I thought some security measures that could be put into place are: using XP's functionality to encrypt the HD, use a bios hard drive password, and possibly install lojack for laptops on all machines.

My questions to the group are: how difficult do you think it is to break xp's encryption?

how hard to bypass a bios HD password? it's easy enough to work around a windows password (super ERD), and lojack for laptops only seems to work on the windows install it was installed to. if a HD was wiped and a fresh install went on, lojack would be toast.

is there any hardware level theft recovery software that would remain even if windows was reinstalled?

Thanks.... MikeC
__________________
Until the 20th century, reality was everything humans could touch, smell, see, and hear. Since the initial publication of the charted electromagnetic spectrum, humans have learned that what they can touch, smell, see, and hear is less than one millionth of reality
mikec is offline  
Old 10-07-2007, 10:08 AM   #2 (permalink)
Upright
 
Location: WA......somewhere....I hope......
Well, the XP encrypt is alright, it's much better than nothing. I haven't ever tried to crack it myself, but on the other hand I haven't seen any uber-easy cracks or anything.

Bios passwords are alright, as long as no one resets the bios.

Essentially, no matter what you do, something is better than nothing.

Hhhmm, I think that's about all that I have to offer...


~Drego
__________________
There is no such thing as "Bug Free" software....there is only software with an acceptable (and documented) level of failure.

Hack the Planet!!!!

Last edited by drego; 10-07-2007 at 10:18 AM..
drego is offline  
Old 10-07-2007, 12:29 PM   #3 (permalink)
Done freeloading here
 
freeload's Avatar
 
Location: on my ass :) - Norway
At work we use SafeGuard Easy encryption for our laptops - all data on the harddrives are encryptet with a pretty strong encryption. Should give a good security - but for easy maintenance all computers have the same password to unlock the encryption
__________________
The future ain't what it used to be.
freeload is offline  
Old 10-07-2007, 12:51 PM   #4 (permalink)
Eccentric insomniac
 
Slims's Avatar
 
Location: North Carolina
PGP makes a real good product. Including good hard drive encryption.

Don't waste your time with a BIOS password, or a windows password. Well, do it to keep out the rifraff, but anybody who knows about computers can bypass them both in about ten minutes.

The BIOS password can be manually reset, and then you tell the BIOS to boot from a CD, which you do using a CD bootable linux distribution. Then simply ditch the hash file containing the windows password, and boot the computer normally...your in.

Lowjack is probably not worth it, because if they are just after the data they will probably ditch the laptop after removing the hard drive.

An encrypted hard drive is really the only way to keep your data secure.
__________________
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act out their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence
Slims is offline  
Old 10-07-2007, 02:18 PM   #5 (permalink)
Crazy
 
trib767's Avatar
 
Location: London, UK
We too use Safeguard Easy www.utimaco.com
Our techs have had issues with some hard drives ending up unbootable - I haven't the personal experience to know whether it's the tech's fault or the software's.
I also keep a 'personal' drive on my work pc encrypted with Truecrypt which is open source so it's free.
trib767 is offline  
Old 10-07-2007, 09:36 PM   #6 (permalink)
I flopped the nutz...
 
mikec's Avatar
 
Location: Stratford, CT
Thanks for the info on encryption, I'll definitely check out safeguard & pgp.

for locating already stolen laptops, I found Computrace that will embed into the bios, and withstand HD reformats & even a HD swap..
__________________
Until the 20th century, reality was everything humans could touch, smell, see, and hear. Since the initial publication of the charted electromagnetic spectrum, humans have learned that what they can touch, smell, see, and hear is less than one millionth of reality
mikec is offline  
Old 10-08-2007, 09:54 AM   #7 (permalink)
Registered User
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikec
Thanks for the info on encryption, I'll definitely check out safeguard & pgp.

for locating already stolen laptops, I found Computrace that will embed into the bios, and withstand HD reformats & even a HD swap..
I have the computrace lojack on my laptop.

Of course I have no idea how good it works since it hasn't been stolen .. yet.
Glory's Sun is offline  
 

Tags
laptop, recovery, security or theft


Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On



All times are GMT -8. The time now is 01:33 AM.

Tilted Forum Project

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Search Engine Optimization by vBSEO 3.6.0 PL2
© 2002-2012 Tilted Forum Project

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360