Mobile Device Recovery

Mobile Device Recovery

So you have a mobile phone, maybe a tablet and / or a laptop – portable digital devices.  These devices connect us to the world via the Internet and cloud services.  We can store & access our email, photos, music, work or personal data, online shopping accounts, banking, etc. – basically your entire digital life!

Now let’s just say, you lost one of these devices, or it was stolen from you.  Chances are, if it was stolen, the thief probably will attempt to wipe it and on-sell it to obtain some quick cash.  This isn’t so bad as long as they’re successful in wiping the device, hopefully, your personal data doesn’t become exposed…  but what if, the would be thief has a thing for being a bit of a purve – that the person who now has our device isn’t looking to sell the device, but is rather looking to victimise someone by exploiting their personal and financial information…

What now?  They can access your online accounts as mentioned above as well as any personal data stored on the device.  That’s fine, you have a password… They won’t get in…  What if it’s your laptop? Do you have disk encryption on your hard drive?  If not, the intruder can very easily boot up the laptop on an external boot disk and bam! They have access to everything!

It was my mobile phone or iPad… Rest assured, you’re mobile phone or tablet has a pin as well… Believe it or not, this isn’t the ultimate protection method either… So now what?

Ok, so you’ve lost your device and are concerned about who has it and where… Wait, what if, through some technological magic of the Internet and the fact that it probably has a SIM card & GPS installed, you were able to somehow locate your lost device.

Enter: Prey Project!

Prey Project is a hosted mobile device tracking and lockout service where device owners can login to their secure online account, view their devices, and remotely lock and track them. That’s right, track them – see where they are on a map and inform the authorities!

So how does it work and what’s the cost?

Well, hopefully, you read this and take action BEFORE you lose one of your devices, because if you lose the device before getting to this point, then your recovery chances will not include the assistance of Prey Project.

How it works:

• You sign up for an account, start with a free account which is quite functional enough to see if the service meets your needs. Visit: http://preyproject.com/ and follow the signup process. Note: the free account does have some functionality limitations, and supports a maximum of three devices.
• Download the app onto your designated mobile devices. Supported devices include: Apple mobile devices, MacBooks, Android devices, and Windows laptops. There maybe others too.
• Once the app is installed, login using your new Prey account and enable Stealth mode.
• From another computer, log back into your Prey account and confirm the device is in your account and visible.
• Confirm that you can request it’s location. You may receive a prompt on the device to allow it to access your location, if so, you’ll need to allow it.
• Now test it by placing the newly added device into lost / stolen mode – this will make the mobile app more aggressive with probing for location services and relaying them back to the Prey Project panel. You should be able to view it on the map, set a lock message and alarm sound on the device too.

Some things to consider:

• Prey Project uses the Internet to communicate with the client apps on your devices to obtain location (and other) information. Without an active Internet connection, the client apps cannot talk to the Prey servers, and thus you wouldn’t be able to locate a device that’s missing.
• On the free account, you can have only up to three devices, and there is limited functionality.  A paid subscription can unlock additional features and allow additional devices.
• Prey doesn’t stop someone gaining access to your content stored on your devices, at least not the free version, unless you remotely wipe the device. A few things to take onboard are:
  • Always ensure the device is lock with a good password or a passcode
  • If possible, enable some form of data or disk encryption
  • If it’s a laptop, ensure you set a BIOS password and a hard drive password.
  • If it’s a MacBook, configure FileVault in system preferences, and configure a firmware password.
  • Remote wiping your device does the obvious – remotely erases everything and restores it back to factory (mobile devices). This means Prey will also be gone and no longer trackable. The would-be thief now has an unlock mobile device ready for on-selling.  This I would personally consider as a last resort if it cannot be located.
• Keep an active Internet SIM inserted in your phone and tablet.
• Before travelling, it may prove wise to allow your (non-SIM connected) device to automatically join hotspots so that IF it does go AWOL, it can hopefully get connected and report back to Prey.
• Always, ALWAYS! Keep regular backups of everything! And don’t keep these backups stored with your devices!

For more information, you can visit the Prey Project website at: https://preyproject.com