Effective solutions against theft and data loss
Effective solutions against theft and data loss
Hundreds and thousands of Macs are stolen daily. Most of these laptops are never found because of inexperienced users, who forget to protect their data from thieves and increase the chances of finding the beloved machine using the built-in Find My Mac feature and/or third-party applications.
Below you will find the overview of each tool I have tried myself which you also can use to track down your stolen Mac.
[SPOILER ALERT] The best solution is probably to utilize the security feature developed by Apple (Find My Mac) together with third-party software that can complement and extend the functionality of Find My Mac. The drawback, however, is that usually such software is not entirely free.
Find My Mac
Find My Mac is a built-in feature that is capable of tracking down your Mac. Once you have it set up, you may be sure the next time your stolen Mac connects to the Internet, you will be able to grab its location, lock the device and/or erase your sensitive data remotely. Note you will need to have location services enabled to do so, so make sure you activate the Find My Mac feature together with other complementary features immediately after you purchase your Mac computer.
You will find more details on the feature in the following Apple Support article:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204756
Undercover
Undercover is a quite popular anti-theft app among the Mac users. In addition to tracking a stolen Mac down, it is capable of taking snapshots of a thief and sending them to the owner of the computer and to the law enforcement. If for some reason Undercover fails to determine the location of a machine, it can simulate the hardware failure for a thief to bring the computer to the Apple Store or any other repair service provider. There, it will be possible to find out that the Mac is stolen and needs to be returned to the owner.
Undercover is compatible with OS X 10.6 or later and costs $49. The link to the official website is available below:
http://orbicule.com/undercover/mac/
Track My Mac
Kromtech’s Track My Mac is another Anti-Theft application. It works on iOS devices and allows to control your machine remotely. Users create Track My Mac account and may lock the screen of their OS X devices in case unauthorised log in attempt occurs. Track My Mac also makes iSight photo of a person and sends notifications, Mac location and intruder’s/theft’s photo to application installed on iOS devices.
Track My Mac is a free application available on the App Store. It is compatible with iOS 8 and later devices.
Track My Mac link: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/track-my-mac/id1055346154?mt=8
Prey
Prey is also a worth mentioning anti-theft application. It can track the location of a stolen Mac and send the owner screenshots of the desktop and snapshots of a thief. The advantage of using Prey is that it has a feature, which blocks the access to your sensitive data and makes it impossible for a thief to retrieve something. Once your computer gets stolen, you need to report it as such for the service to start gathering information and protecting the files you have on the hard drive.
Prey is compatible with OS X 10.4 or later. The basic licence is free, however, to be able to use all the features of the app one has to get the ‘Home’ subscription for $15/month. The link to the official website is available below:
You can find some additional reading on the topic at links:
http://www.gottabemobile.com/2015/06/17/how-to-find-a-stolen-mac/
http://forums.macrumors.com/threads/my-macbook-pro-got-stolen.1358519/
Hope this short user tip helped you understand how to protect your Mac from theft and what to do in case the computer got stolen.
P.S. I would be grateful for any recommendations and edits of this User Tip.