In the unfortunate situation of a stolen laptop, here’s how to protect yourself:
Use your tracking software (if you have it)
- Tracking software can, as the name suggests, help you find your stolen laptop as fast as possible, hopefully before any data can be harvested from it.
- Rather than having to wait for other methods of discovering its location, reliable tracking software allows you to react to the theft almost immediately.
- Some laptops, such as those produced by Apple, have tracking software built in which you can access via iCloud.
Change your passwords
- Change your passwords as soon as you can, especially if you have one password for more than one account. This will help you protect as many of your accounts as possible, and hopefully prevent any ongoing complications after the theft.
- Ideally, if you’d like to be more secure, enable Multiple Factor Authentication (MFA) on your accounts and other devices to prevent any hackers accessing accounts.
Notify any financial or business institutions
- One of the most important steps is to let your bank know that your details may have been compromised so that they are able to change your details and potentially freeze your accounts.
- Additionally, if your laptop is a work laptop, letting your employer know of the potential security breach may protect any of their information from being accessed through your laptop or credentials.
Wipe your device
- Especially if you have it backed up, this should be one of the first things that you do, so that no hacker can access any of your personal data. This step allows you to take more time to notify other institutions, file police reports or try and track your device down.
What can we do?
Corona IT Solutions can help you comprehensively and effectively protect your devices from security threats, giving you peace of mind if anything goes wrong. Want to hear more about security measures for your devices? Check out some articles from our blog or the IT security page on our website.
