In Kuala Lumpur, leaving your notebook inside your car is a huge mistake. You think leaving them in your trunk or hidden somewhere in your car is safe but in fact it’s not. You see, every notebook/computer has a battery to keep the CMOS settings. That’s why even if your notebook battery is totally flat, the time is still current. It seems that these laptop thieves possess some kind of device which is used to scan for live battery. When they got a signal of a live battery, they’d take the chance of breaking in your car and look for the laptop or mobile phone. Everyone knows it’s either under the seat or at the back of the trunk.

Here are some of laptop theft facts:

A laptop is stolen every 53 seconds – Safeware Insurance

97% of stolen computers are never recovered – FBI

The chances of your laptop being stolen this year are 1 in 10 – Gartner Group

The typical loss for a stolen notebook is $6,285 when the cost of lost productivity and replacement of data, software, and hardware are considered – Gartner Group

The average loss rises to $61,881 when the value of the information on the laptop is included – CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey

Laptop theft has been attributed to 59% of computer attacks in government agencies, corporations, and universities during 2003 – Baseline

Here are some ideas which you try to use to recover, track and locate your stolen notebook.


There are popular software such as LoJack for Laptops and Stealth Shield Computrace which claims to be the leading theft protection service that tracks, locates and recovers stolen laptop and desktop computers.

From what I see, it’s not as high tech as car recovery system using GPS. Here’s how Lojack and Computrace track and locate stolen laptop. Software installed on your computer works behind the scenes to silently and securely contact the software provider Monitoring Center, and if stolen, reports its location using any Internet connection.

The Recovery Team then tracks the stolen laptop’s location and partners with local law enforcement to get your computer back. They even guarantee that if your stolen computer is not recovered in 30 days, you’ll receive a full refund for the purchase price of the software. The most important factor here is the local law enforcement and Internet Service Provider. To track a person’s location, all they need is the exact time and IP address. They report it to local police, and the police will hand over the IP address and time to Internet service provider to track the phone line that’s being used.

In my opinion, the software works pretty much like Trojan with reverse-connection except it is a legitimate software and used for non-malicious purposes. I will explain a little on how reverse connection trojan works. The hacker will run the client and build a server first. The hacker enters his own IP address and port that the server will connect to. There might be other features such as plugins and etc. The server is sent to the victim. Once the victim run the server, it will start connecting to the hacker’s IP address. All the hacker need to do is run the client program and listen to the specified incoming port. When it’s connected, file manager, webcam capture, screen capture, keylogger and many other feature can be used on the victim.

Let’s say my laptop has got a built-in webcam and I infected myself with a remote administration trojan. If my laptop gets stolen, I immediately run the client on other computer and wait for my stolen laptop to go online. Once it’s online, it will automatically connect to my computer. I launch webcam capture, and I can get a snapshot of the thief’s face. With the IP address, time and picture, there’s no running away! Seems like a pretty good idea to me! However, please be advised not to simply use any trojan because some might be backdoored.

Here are my suggestion on what you can do.
1. Subscribe to LoJack or Computrace service.

2. Use LocatePC

– LocatePC is a free software, and runs unobtrusively on your computer, with no icons, popups or saved emails. If your computer is stolen then the thief will not even know that LocatePC is running, and as soon as they connect to the internet a secret email is sent to you containing the details that you need to track your hardware. It is totally hidden and the only way to bring up LocatePC window after installation is by pressing the default key ALT+SHIFT+HOME. This key combination can be changed.

[ Download LocatePC ]

3. Use Reverse Connect Trojan

– If you’re experienced in these kind of tools, then you can infect yourself with trojan and set it to connect to a host. If not, please don’t try it as you might accidentally get backdoored. When your laptop is stolen, just update your IP in dynamic DNS service, run the client and wait for your laptop to get connected to you. When it’s connected to you, immediately log down the time and IP address. If your laptop has a built-in webcam, quickly capture the thieves face.

NOTE: To track down laptop thieves using the above method, the laptop thief must be logged in to the PC, and the PC connected to the Internet. Logically, if a thief stolen a laptop, they would surely turn it on and check what’s in the PC. Most probably they’ll even connect to Internet. Problem is if you’ve set a password for your user account, they wouldn’t be able to log in, and the tools above won’t work. Would you remove your user account password for a chance to locate your laptop if it is stolen?