PC Theft: Can a Burglar Steal Twice?

Written by Dan Schaefer

If you’ve ever been burglarized, then you know the feeling of violation and loss that accompanies the physical loss. Your recovery from this feeling may take minutes or days, but in either case, if the burglary involves a PC, then put your feelings on hold for a few hours; you have more immediate business to attend to.

Burglars are beginning to realize that the data on your PC’s hard drive could be far more valuable than the hardware itself. So in the hours after the PC is stolen, you can bet that the thief is busy trying to see what kind of interesting information he can glean from your personal life. If you’ve used your PC for ordering anything online, then there’s a good chance that the thief can use the stored Internet cookies on your stolen PC to log into your online accounts and possibly order some merchandise.

Here are some preventative steps to help ensure you don’t get burglarized a second time:

Remove all cookies on your PC. Your browser’s help section will tell you how to do this. Removing cookies will force you to log into every online service you use, so as you log into each service, decide whether or not you are willing to allow a potential thief to use it. If the service is, say, an online forum upon which you occasionally leave comments, it’s probably not worth worrying about. But if the service is a bank or an online merchant like eBay or Amazon, you should decline the website’s offer to remember your PC. This will prevent you from accepting an identifying cookie from the service.
Make a handwritten list of all online merchants and banks in which you have an account. Theoretically, this should not be necessary if you’ve declined to save cookies as described in step 1 above; however, there’s always the chance that you pushed the wrong button when signing into an account, and therefore, you need to perform this step. When your PC is stolen, you can call each merchant on your list and instruct them to invalidate your password. While you’re at it, ask them to NOT email you a new password, as the thief is probably monitoring your email box.
Log in with another PC and change all your passwords. If you can accomplish this task before the thief does the same thing, then you’ve essentially beat him to the punch.
Use an online email account that holds all your email. Holding all your email locally on your PC can be convenient; however, when your PC is stolen, you will lose all your email history. There are a number of free online email services like Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail.
Set up your PC with an account that you must log into. For example, when starting up your Windows PC, force the PC to take a password before it lets you use it. And use a good cryptic password like aKmjl9*4#C. The more cryptic your password, the longer it will take a clever thief to crack it. And during the few hours that the thief is cracking your password, you could be making phone calls to all your banks and online merchants.
Use cryptic passwords. Using the name of your pet or your schoolmate as a password is a really bad idea. These days, password cracking code can find simple passwords in a matter of seconds. It may be painful to use something really cryptic, but doing so may thwart a thief. When selecting a cryptic password, use upper and lower case letters, numbers and some punctuation marks for good measure. If you’re like me, you’ll have to write down the passwords somewhere so you can remember them. That’s okay, as long as they aren’t put on a Post-it note and attached to the PC itself.
For each PC you own, create a unique account with dyndns.com. Dyndns.com provides a free service that will associate a unique name (e.g.; danschaefer.dyndns.org) with a public Internet address. Normally, this service is used to locate your PC when you wish to remotely access it, but you might be able to use it to locate a stolen PC. For example, once you discover that your PC is missing, get access to another PC and issue a “ping” command to the stolen PC’s unique name. (e.g.; ping danschaefer.dyndns.org) If you get a response, then the thief is already using your PC and you are pinging it. Write down the “IP” address of the ping response (e.g.; 64.36.128.42), and immediately call your neighborhood geek to see if he or she can trace it. If you get fancy enough, you may be able to set up your stolen PC to activate its built-in webcam (if it has one) to take a picture of the thief in action. In any case, the police should be notified immediately so they can handle the situation from there.
Monitor your bank account(s) and credit card account(s) daily. If by chance the thief was successful in actually logging into your PC, then consider everything at risk. If you suspect that your credit card number(s) might be compromised, contact the credit card company(ies) immediately and have them invalidate the number. Do NOT simply close the credit card account. (See my other post on the difference between closing an account and invalidating the number.) You MUST invalidate the credit card number as if the card was stolen.

The most important thing is to put your sense of panic or feeling of dread on hold until you’ve ensured that the thief cannot exploit data on your hard drive and steal from you a second time. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to locate the PC (as explained in tip #7 above), but don’t count on being so lucky.

Don't forget to implement this policy on any PCs you use at work. Workplace PCs are often stolen, and if you have any personal information on your work PC, then your online profile is at risk.

Finally, as with any type of burglary, remember to call the police, contact your insurance company and notify anyone you think might be compromised by the loss of data.

Good luck!

Dan

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PC Theft: Can a Burglar Steal Twice?