Anti-theft Security For Mac

Thanks to and for promoting this post follow me for updates. Let’s get started helping you to secure your mac: My residence was recently broken into (the alarm malfunctioned on entry and only went off as the thieves left) and two Mac laptops were taken. Luckily, I have good insurance and had an up to date Time Machine backup. Over the past week, I’ve learned some additional things I could have done to prepare for this eventuality.

My house had also been broken into ten years ago. Here’s a summary of what you should do to prepare your Macs right now for the possibility of theft. It won’t eliminate theft but it will greatly reduce the damage from such events and make it more likely that your device will return to you.

Use a Password Manager. I’m a longtime user and strong advocate for. I like that it also allows me to store secure notes. 1Password makes it easy to avoid the habit of re-using passwords amongst multiple sites. It also syncs passwords across multiple Macs, iPhones, iPads et al.

If instead you do not use a password-based login for your Mac and save all your passwords in your browser, a thief would very quickly be able to login in to most all of your accounts. Turn on File Vault. File Vault encrypts your Mac’s hard drive and automatically turns off automatic login, requiring you provide a password to log in to your Mac. By turning off automated login, FileVault makes it more difficult for thieves to access your laptop data without your password. If they take your hard drive out of your Mac, they won’t be able to easily decrypt your personal data from another device. See System Preferences - Security & Privacy - FileVault. Store a copy of the File Vault encryption key somewhere safe – such as a secure note in 1Password. FileVault also restricts the guest account you’ll set up below from accessing anything other than Safari to browse the web. Update: See at bottom for more information about File Vault and theft recovery software.

Set a Firmware Password. This is critical. Setting a firmware password will prevent anyone from reformatting your hard drive without your password. This will also make it difficult for them to defeat anti-theft software we’ll describe below. Restart your Mac. When the grey screen appears,.

Once the Recover System app starts, open the Utilities menu and select Set Firmware Password. Save this password somewhere safe or in 1Password or you won’t ever be able to modify the lower level configuration of your Mac.

Note: If you ever sell or give away your Mac, you’ll likely want to remove this password or change it to something simple you can share with the new owner. Install Theft Recovery Software. The goal of theft recovery software is to get the Internet IP address of your laptop if the thief or eventual purchaser reconnects it to the Internet – I saw one statistic that said that 90% of stolen laptops reappear on the Internet within a few weeks. However, if you don’t set a firmware password – the hard drive can be easily reformatted – which will defeat these features. You can use your iCloud’s built-in Find My Mac capability (free) or purchase software such as, (flat $49-$59 fee) or (also works for iPhones & iPads). The latter two surreptitiously photograph the thief using your computer. I don’t have a strong recommendation for any of these however it seems that the Lojack team has an active effort in collaboration with U.S.-based law enforcement.

Sometimes victims of theft may get an IP address of their Mac but the police are not willing to respond to the data. Apparently, the Lojack team has success in getting police response to their software. Create a Guest User Account. The purpose of the guest user account is to make it more likely that the thief or someone downstream will login in to your Mac on the Internet and allow the IP address to be determined by your theft recovery software. If you turned on File Vault, the guest user account will be limited to Safari web browsing and not able to see your local files.

If you don’t leave a guest account and you activate FileVault and Firmware Passwords, then your Mac will essentially be a useless brick to the thief – and they might throw it away. The guest account moderately increases the likelihood someone will connect the device to the Internet. Set up Time Machine. Apple’s Time Machine works quite well. Using a network-based approach is advisable with laptops, as they can update their backups with Time Machine over wi-fi and don’t have to be physically connected to a hard drive. I had luckily made sure my Time Machine backup was up to date before I left to travel and within 12 hours, I had restored all my data to a new laptop.

I didn’t have to do anything to reconfigure my new laptop – it was now identical to the configuration I’d had before. Subscribe to a Cloud Based Backup Service. I’ve begun using Crash Plan ($60 annually) but many people use.

I like Crash Plan because it makes it easier to backup external hard drives whereas BackBlaze has some restrictions on these. If the hard drive with my Time Machine backup is also stolen, all my data will be available in the cloud. Cloud-based backups are also useful in case of hard drive failures which are. Encrypt and Backup Any External Hard Drives. If you encrypt your external hard drives, thieves won’t be able to access the data on them if they are stolen.

Anti Theft Security Chain

The latest OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion edition makes it easy to encrypt them:. I also like the which include built-in hardware encryption – BackBlaze also found these have.

Use Dropbox and Google Drive for Daily Work. Increasingly, I use to synchronize my current work files across my Macs. This also provides a small, free cloud-based backup of stuff I’m working on.

I also use Google Drive for more and more documents – which are all stored online. Dropbox, by the way, also tracks the IP address of your Mac, should a stolen one be reconnected to the Internet (See Settings - Security - Device list). A colleague also recommends to remotely encrypt your cloud-based documents. Set Login Screen Message. You can set a message on your login screen such as “Property of Joan Smith. Please contact me at ” which anyone with physical access to your Mac will see. It’s like a personalized software engraving for your Mac. See Preferences - Security & Privacy - General - Show a message when the screen is locked.

Learn More If you found this list helpful, and share this tutorial with your friends and colleagues. I’m also available for and have a.

Updates on File Vault and Theft Recovery Software There is conflicting information about whether use of File Vault 2 interferes with Theft Recovery Software. I’ve asked several vendors and honestly, all the information still conflicts – so you’ll have to experiment on your own. The issue is whether or not the guest account that allows Safari login actually allows the theft recovery software to activate itself during this process – or not. Glenn Fleishman wrote that but his article reads as conjecture and he emailed me to say he hadn’t kept up with the latest. LoJack was very responsive and seems to say if installed correctly, that it works – but I’m skeptical. There should be no problems with LoJack working work any encryption software, including FileVault 2. However, please be aware that if you are using encryption software on your device, you should fully decrypt the drive before installation of LoJack.

Once the installation has been successful, you may re-encrypt the drive. In all other regards, LoJack is fully compatible with FileVault 2. With Mac devices, LoJack does not write to a boot sector, so the chances of corruption are non-existent. LoJack will write to certain system folders, and if the device is encrypted, these writes can sometimes fail to occur.

When this happens, the installer will universally error out. For this reason, as a rule, we will always recommend decryption of a drive first, to ensure that the installation will run more smoothly and without errors. Undercover which relies on the same software capabilities says the opposite: Undercover is indeed unfortunately not compatible with FileVault 2 (Full Disk Encryption), as this will not allow the Mac to boot (only on the recovery partition, where Undercover cannot be installed), unless you know the password. As a result, no applications can be run without the password. This includes Undercover, and even Apple’s own Find My Mac software.

So basically you have to choose between protecting your data with FileVault or having a chance to recover your Mac. I’m sorry to say this, but this is how Apple has designed FileVault 2.

Anti Theft Alarm

Prey seems to indicate as well that. So, best to experiment on your own and choose the approach you feel most comfortable with. If you learn anything more, please post a comment here.

There is no 100% solution to protect Mac from potential theft. But you can be prepared to recover Mac just in case you lost. When you consider Mac Theft Preventing Software, “ Find My Mac” app will pop into your head. Apple’s Find My Mac is easy to set up and easy to track, but not as powerful as you think, especially when you want to recover the lost Mac? My own story, my MacBook Pro was stolen in Dec. When I realized that I lost my Mac, I was sure to retrieve Mac with Apple’s Find My Mac Tracking App. I logged into my iCloud account from a Windows Desktop and checked the status of lost MacBook Pro.

After waiting for a few hours, my MacBook status had been changed from offline to online. I wasn’t sure about my next step. I took a screenshot of the location, and I played a sound to alert the thief. Playing an alert sound on lost Mac won’t help you to retrieve the Mac. Instead, an alert sound may be a warning, like, Hi, Dude. I tracked you. I can see your location Blah.

When I realized that I took a wrong step there, my Mac went into the offline mode from the iCloud account. After a few days, my lost Mac came back online with a different name (Angel’s Mac). When I saw a different name on my Mac, I realized that he is not going to return my Mac. I sent another signal to erase Mac data, and I’m still not sure whether it worked or not. Meanwhile, I filed a complaint and completed all legal formalities.

That’s all; I had Mac last found location, Mac Serial Number, and UID number, none of these were helpful to track back my lost Mac. I bought a new Mac after two years, and I implemented the following steps to protect my Mac from any potential theft. I listed all those steps here and I encourage you to follow these free tips to secure your Mac. Set Up An Open Guest Account When you set up Mac first time, create an account for you and a different guest account without a password. This guest account will be the only place where the thief can immediately tend to access a stolen Mac. This Mac guest account allows changing the Wi-Fi network without an admin password.

This internet connection is the only solution for your tracking software to connect Mac and share thief’s information with you by email or message. On Mac OS, you can easily add a guest account. Go to System Preferences Users & Groups Unlock Paddle Lock Click Add+. You can refer for Mac. Custom Lock Screen Message The Custom Lock Screen message is a good idea to provide your contact details in case you lost your Mac.

You can provide a return address or a callback number on the lock screen that may help the good Samaritan to return your lost Mac. This Lock Screen Message also good to display the ownership information of the real Mac owner. If somebody has stolen your Mac and you have already set a Firmware password with this Custom Lock Screen, nobody would be able to change this Lock Message without firmware password. This Custom Lock Message will help the technician to contact you if thief approaches any repair shop.

To add custom lock screen message, go to System Preferences Security & Privacy General Click Pad Lock to Disable Check Show a message when the screen is locked. You will get a pop-up window where you can add your custom lock screen message; more article. Install a Mac Tracking Software Find My Mac is not an ultimate solution to track back your stolen Mac. Can lock or erase your Mac or play a sound. But this solution is not sufficient to retrieve your stolen Mac.

There are a bunch of other third-party apps coming with helpful features that help you to recover your Mac. Most of this can email stolen Mac location coordinates that help the cop to track thief’s location. In addition to this, this Mac Tracking software can send intruder selfies, track screen activities and even send screenshots by email to the law enforcement and the owner of the Mac. Please set up a guest account, use firmware password, turn off FileVault and grant location access to make sure your Mac Theft Protection can perform well.

Setup a Firmware Password for Mac Nobody cares about a firmware password until they learn the lesson. Firmware password protects your Mac Operating System from any changes. Anybody can reinstall your Mac Operating system or even modify the admin password unless the system protected with a Firmware Password. Please refer more details for When somebody steals your Mac, he will first try to use the system with a guest account.

When he realizes that idea is not safe, then he will try to wipe off and reinstall a brand new Mac OS on your computer. This Firmware password is going to prevent him from reinstalling the OS. This password also blocks him from changing the custom lock screen on Mac.

Now the only solution for him is to use your guest account or approach Apple Support to reinstall the OS. Well, if he wants to keep using your guest account, you can eventually track him using the Mac Tracking Software. If he chose to approach Apple Technician, the Custom Lock Screen Message would give them a red flag. Grant Location Access Like your iPhone, Mac doesn’t have any built-in GPS sensor.

However, Mac’s approximate location is determined using information from local Wi-Fi networks that connected. Most of the powerful Mac Tracking Software is offering to share the location of the Mac. When you install these Mac theft protection software on your computer, the app will ask you to share the location access to this software.

Please make sure you grant the location for the tracking software. To enable location service on Mac, System Preferences Security & Privacy Privacy tab Location Services Check the “Enable Location Services” checkbox. Please read more details to. Be Careful with FileVault Sometimes, this tracking software may not work with Mac’s FileVault. FileVault is to encrypt your entire disk so that nobody can retrieve the data from your Mac Hard Disk. Unfortunately, there are some compatibility issues with FileVault and Tracking software. Please check with your Mac tracking software before you on the system.

Conclusion Before you leave, if you already lost your Mac, there is a worldwide registry to register your lost Mac details (there is no Apple service to register lost devices). I’m not sure how effective this third-party service, but you can try your luck at this free service called. The Immobilize website is a free register of possession ownership details.

This site works together with its sister sites Police’s and forms; both are very effective tool in helping to reduce crime and repatriate recovered personal property to its rightful owners. I couldn’t retrieve my MacBook back because of my negligence. I wish I had all these security measures I mentioned above to protect my Mac, but it is too late. This guide will not complete unless you refer. Please be careful not to lose your hard-earned money, and make sure you did all the possible steps to protect your Mac from potential theft.