What is the first action an information security manager should take when a company laptop is reported stolen?

 Losing your laptop is a costly inconvenience at best, and a significant threat to your digital security at worst.

While the practical consequences may vary depending on who gets their hands on your device — a petty thief who's just looking to pawn the hardware versus someone with the basic knowledge to hack your passwords (or worse) — there are a number of steps you can and should take to mitigate any possible damage. 

You can also implement preventive measures to minimize the security risk if your laptop is ever lost or stolen. 

Change your account passwords

This is the first step most security experts recommend if you lose possession of your laptop. If someone else can log into your device, then they'll likely have access to most or all of your online accounts — especially if you use your device's or browser's keychain to autofill your usernames and passwords. 

Start with your email password. Make that password long, strong and unique. Your email account is the key to your other accounts, as a thief can use it to reset login information.

Then enable two-factor authentication (2FA) on your email account if you haven't already. You'll also want to prioritize global logins, like those on your Apple ID or Microsoft accounts, that grant access to other data and services. 

Once your email account is secure, start working your way through other accounts, including social media and bank logins. And while you're at it, make all your passwords better and consider using one of the best password managers.

"Changing passwords is important, but it's more important to use a unique strong password for every account and device," says Amir Tarighat, founder of the Los Angeles-based cybersecurity startup Achilleion (opens in new tab).

If you have autofill enabled in your web browsers, all a thief need do to access your accounts is open that browser. Turn off automatic sign-in options and delete your saved passwords. 

To do this in Chrome, go to chrome://settings/passwords and toggle off Auto Sign-in. You can also clear your browsing data (opens in new tab) to remove saved logins from any devices that sync with your Google account and sign out of Chrome remotely (opens in new tab). Firefox (opens in new tab) and Safari (opens in new tab) have similar options in their preferences and settings menus. 

You should also remove all saved payment information from your online e-commerce accounts, such as Amazon. 

You may also be able to remotely revoke your laptop's access to online services. Apple has an option to remove devices (opens in new tab) logged into your Apple ID. You can remove computers (opens in new tab) from Google's trusted device list, deregister devices (opens in new tab) from your Amazon account and log out remotely (opens in new tab) from Facebook.

A quick Google search will bring up instructions for other services — a good bet for those you use to log into other third-party sites. 

You can also turn off any auto-sync features between linked devices, such as your phone and tablet, to prevent your information from being updated on your missing laptop. 

Track your laptop's location and use remote-wipe features

This tip generally only works if your lost device connects to the internet, which makes it more useful for mobile devices. But if your laptop does go online, you can use built-in "find my device" features to locate and control it. 

If "Find My" is enabled in advance through iCloud for your Apple computer, you can see connected devices on a map and take several actions to secure them, including marking them as lost (opens in new tab) (which locks them and disables Apple Pay) and activating remote erase (opens in new tab). 

Windows users have similar options (opens in new tab) to locate and lock devices from afar. There are also third-party programs like Prey that give you options for remote control. Many of the best antivirus programs also have laptop-tracking features.

Notify your financial institutions 

Just as you would if you lost your physical wallet, contact your bank and credit-card companies about any financial accounts that autofill when you make a purchase or that you have saved on e-commerce sites. You can freeze your debit and credit cards and let your financial institutions know about the possibility of suspicious activity. 

In the meantime, you should also keep track of your account activity by checking it online every couple of days after your laptop goes missing. If personal information such as tax returns, bank account numbers or Social Security numbers are on the stolen laptop, then consider freezing your credit records.

Notify your employer

If you lose your work computer, let your employer know immediately. Your company may have specific protocols to follow, additional options to track or wipe the device, or software installed that can recover your data. Plus, your work laptop is your employer's property — not yours. 

File a police report — and report the loss to the manufacturer

Truthfully, this step may not yield results, but it's possible that your device can be recovered if someone tries to sell it or get tech support. File a report with local law enforcement, who may request your laptop's serial number (more on that in a minute). Both ASUS (opens in new tab) and Dell (opens in new tab) will open stolen device cases. 

A police report may also be required if you want to submit an insurance claim.

Steps for prevention

You can't predict whether your laptop will be lost or stolen, but you can take preventive steps to protect it if it ever is. 

• Write down your device's serial number so you have it on hand. 
• Secure your laptop with a password. 
• Enable limits that will lock up your device after a certain number of failed login attempts.
• Use a secure password manager instead of device and browser autofill to keep track of strong, unique logins. 
• Consider a physical security key, like YubiKey or Google Titan, for 2FA. 
• Set up automatic backups from your laptop in case you need to remotely wipe it. 
• Use full-disk encryption to secure your hard drive. 

The goal is to make it difficult for someone to get your valuable information from a lost or stolen laptop, Tarighat says. Putting up as many barriers as possible — requiring a thief to break into your operating system, overcome 2FA, unencrypt your hard drive and break lots of individual unique passwords — can help protect your data. 

Tom's Guide created this content as part of a paid partnership with Bitdefender. The contents of this article are entirely independent and solely reflect the editorial opinion of Tom's Guide.

It can be a terrible experience to have your laptop stolen. Someone else might potentially acquire access to your entire life, given everything we carry on our phones these days.

A laptop is stolen every 53 seconds, according to studies. The great majority, according to the Metropolitan Police, are stolen from pubs or public transportation. The best course of action is to try to prevent theft from occurring in the first place. When you're out and about, keep your laptop visible or attach it to a table with a laptop lock. Theft does, however, occur. It simply takes a few seconds for someone to remove your laptop from you without your knowledge.

While using GPS or tracking devices to recover your laptop is a possibility, the best thing you can do is decrease the danger of subsequent loss and secure your identity and information contained on the device. When you realize your laptop is missing, take these steps right away.

1. Wipe Your Data

If you have little hope of regaining your computer, the most efficient technique to protect yourself from losing crucial information to the thief is to quickly use the "Erase" option to erase your computer's data.

Even if you retrieve your laptop, some experts advised to take this drastic measure in case virus was planted on your machine, allowing someone to remotely access your information.

There is a capability in LoJack for Laptops that allows you to wipe particular sensitive documents.

Unfortunately, there is no way to get these back later.

2. Make a police report

Immediately notify the police department about the theft. They'll submit a report. However, don't expect them to go out of their way to find it. They are more likely to offer you resources and information to aid you in your search.

You can also use a service like Immobilize to register your gadget. It's possible that the gadget will be returned to you if it's discovered as part of another crime or inquiry in the future.

3. Make Contact with Your Financial Institutions

Contact your banks as soon as you detect your computer or phone is missing to freeze your various credit and debit cards. Although the person who took your computer is unlikely to gain access to your internet accounts, you don't want to make any changes to your money or investments.

More than that, you may have saved or auto filled credit card information on some of your favorite online buying sites. Your payment source may be depleted if this is the case.

Your banks and other financial institutions will be more than happy to assist you in receiving new cards and keeping track of your accounts.

4. Log out of all your sessions remotely

To log out of all your sessions and accounts, use a different computer or phone. For your convenience, Google will keep you logged into many devices, but you can easily log out of all of them.

Go to Gmail, scroll to the bottom of your messages, and look for "Details" under your inbox in the bottom right corner. After clicking it, go to the top and select "sign out of all other online sessions." Then go to this page to de-authorize apps that have access to your Google account. Remember that you can log out of Facebook and other social media accounts from anywhere!

You'll need to go through all of your saved passwords and erase them. If you're using a device that isn't yours, you'll need to first log into the browser. Go to the password manager after that. Go to Chrome's Settings > Advanced Settings > Passwords and Forms > Manage Passwords to manage your passwords. Turn off auto-sign in first, then remove all of your passwords by clicking on the three dots next to the site where they're saved and selecting "delete." We also recommend that you delete autofill because it frequently saves personal information.

Then, to delete and uninstall any password manager that is synchronizing your data with the stolen device, we recommend signing up for LastPass or a similar tool. It will also assist you in the future with password management.

5. Browser Sync should be turned off

While Browser Sync is normally quite convenient, it isn't so much fun if your laptop is stolen, because any modifications you make will be synced with your stolen laptop immediately. As a result, the next step is to turn off synchronization. Uncheck Sync everything in Chrome's Settings > Manage Sync. Then, in Settings, choose “Encrypt all synced data using your own sync pass.” Select a secure password that you haven't used before. Take a look at our suggestions for passwords.

For all of your applications, you may now start creating new logins and passwords. Start with your primary email address, as many websites send you notifications when your password is changed.

6. Authorities should be notified

It is highly unlikely that authorities are going to initiate a search party for your laptop or phone, however, having a record of the theft and the serial number or IMEI (if you took it down before the device was stolen) will greatly assist the police in returning any recovered property to its rightful owner.

How to prevent future theft?

When you replace your laptop, it's time to take precautions to prevent future theft:

1. Create a strong login password that you must input every time you turn on your laptop or enable the screensaver. Use services like Microsoft's Password Strength Checker to see how strong your password is.
2. If you're using a laptop, don't let websites remember your passwords.
3. Use services like Microsoft Bitlocker or Apple's FileVault to encrypt your hard disc. You can also register with services, to have stolen items returned to you if they are recovered.
4. To keep data loss to a minimum, back up papers, and images to an external hard drive. Make it a practice to not keep unnecessary items on your laptop.

It can be a terrible experience to have your laptop stolen. Someone else might potentially acquire access to your entire life, given everything we carry on our phones these days.