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Stolen Macbook (Read 3158 times)

Will Hunt

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Stolen Macbook
November 23, 2014, 08:45:12 pm
Whilst we were away our house was broken into by some parasitic cunts. Fortunately our neighbour was coming into the house each evening and got the police round and informed my in laws, so the house was made secure and dusted for prints etc.
On the plus side, the dull cunts took almost nothing of value (brand new cordless drill with a few bob etc), in fact we don't think they actually took anything else at all other than my Macbook and my partners christening bracelet (small, tarnished silver, engraved with a name, almost entirely lacking in monetary value).
The police have said that the house was very well secured so the insurance should pay out, I'm not concerned about the loss of the physical Maxine at all.
What I'm really worried about is whether there is any confidential stuff buried on the laptop's hard drive which is now at risk. Being really silly, I had no tracking software installed on it. Question: how difficult is it to get past the startup password on a Macbook?
I've had a look at whether Dropbox or gmail or Facebook have recorded any sessions in unusual places and there is nothing, so presumably they haven't got past the password or they have it kept in airplane mode. There is one login recorded in the Netherlands but I'm going to chalk this up to the Airbus's free wifi getting routed there as it said it was via a mobile device.
Is it worth doing a password change? I know I should from a security perspective, but if I do then presumably I'll never track the laptop if somebody ever does get through the login password.

Any advice greatly appreciated!

Will Hunt

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#1 Re: Stolen Macbook
November 23, 2014, 08:50:56 pm
Obviously this is a new problem for me, but I've no idea why I posted it in this forum. If a mod would like to move this then it would be smashing.

tomtom

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#2 Re: Stolen Macbook
November 23, 2014, 10:10:40 pm
Bad news Will. Welcome home eh! Not. :(

Change all your passwords. Won't hurt..

Ru

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#3 Re: Stolen Macbook
November 23, 2014, 10:13:37 pm
If it's encrypted (i.e. if you have FileVault turned on) then you're fine. I'm not sure anyone can break in. If it's just password protected then bypassing it is possible with some knowledge. I have no idea how its done, but recently researched the same point as my (thankfully encrypted) Macbook has also been nicked recently.


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#4 Re: Stolen Macbook
November 23, 2014, 10:32:35 pm
IIRC the default on a macbook setup is file vault on... you may have not even noticed.. hope that's the case.. then you are sorted..

Will Hunt

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#5 Re: Stolen Macbook
November 24, 2014, 01:12:01 pm
Thanks all for the info. FileVault sounds reassuring but I really have no idea whether it was enabled. It was a late 2008 13-inch Macbook, I think running OS X Lion. I can't think that I ever activated or deactivated FileVault; does anybody know whether this sort of setup would have it enabled by default?

I have had a quick google but information is sparse. It seems that everyone is making a hoo ha about it being turned on by default in OS X Yosemite, which would suggest this is not the case for the previous editions of OS X. Not looking good really  :(

With this in mind is there any further advance on whether it is worth changing passwords for stuff that will record ISPs on login. Presumably if they open Chrome with an internet connection then, with Google being the homepage, there might be some activity on Gmail.

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#6 Re: Stolen Macbook
November 24, 2014, 01:35:23 pm
Definitely change all your passwords just in case. On most main websites like Facebook, Google, Twitter you can see where you are logged in and end sessions remotely. Unless you stored them in a word doc etc it's unlikely they will be able to recover credit card details etc from internet history etc. Banks will be happy to give you new ones if your in the slightest not sure.

eg.
https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=security&section=sessions&view
https://security.google.com/settings/security/activity?pli=1

Generally they are nicking stuff for the device value, not trying to nick your identity etc, so they will wipe it ASAP just in case it can be traced. Had my first Nexus tablet nicked and it didn't go online again so must have wiped it straight away. I could see in my Google device manager.

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#7 Re: Stolen Macbook
November 25, 2014, 07:30:23 pm
Hard luck, hopefully they'll try and flog it, make sure the police have the serial number as I think there's still a means of pawnbrokers checking the serials to make sure they're not buying hooky gear.

 

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