Tech2know

Now a days your laptop requires some additional security measures to protect it against theft. Apart from the involved cost, which no doubt is a big blow on one’s pocket, laptop theft risks all the personal, official, business related confidential information which is stored in the gadget. Many a times the information stored in laptop is much more crucial than its cost. So, what to do?

Well, we have a free(for personal use) software which helps you in enhancing your laptop’s security. Its LAlarm. As the name indicates, LAlarm starts making noise when it sense that laptop is being stolen.

“LAlarm™ is free laptop alarm security software. LAlarm sounds an alarm when a laptop is in danger of being stolen or losing data, and it can recover and destroy data if the laptop is stolen. LAlarm consists of seven alarms and other security functions designed to protect laptops, sensitive data and laptop users”

System Requirements :

Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP SP2, SP3

Below is a setup screen shot of LAlarm :

Installation is very simple and doesn’t take more that a few seconds. But, you need a restart for completing the installation.

Following are the features of LAlarm :

• Theft Alarm- It prevents laptop theft by sounding an alarm when a thief tries to steal a laptop.
• Perimeter Alarm- It alerts when a laptop goes outside a perimeter. It helps prevent laptop misuse and keeps the laptop within a safe boundary.
• Inattention Alarm- It sounds an alarm when the owner leaves the computer unattended in an unsafe area for a period of time. It helps prevent laptop theft.
• Battery Alarm- It alarms when the battery is under stress in order to preserve the battery capacity and prolong the battery lifetime. It also alarms when the battery level is low to prevent data corruption due to sudden power loss.
• Disk Alarm- It alarms when a hard disk drive needs a repair or replacement in order to prevent data loss and laptop failure.
• Data Destruction- It protects sensitive data by destroying the data if the laptop is stolen.
• Data Recovery- It can recover data from a stolen laptop.
• Mobile Phone Alert- It sends an alert to a mobile phone via email or SMS.
• Theft Response- you can tell your laptop what to do in advance if your laptop is in hands of a thief.
• Health Alarm- alerts the user for using a computer for an extended period of time in order to prevent computer-related injuries.
• Panic Alarm- alerts an emergency contact in case of an emergency. Also emits a loud alarm sound to protect the user from an attacker.

How to use LAlarm :

1) By connecting laptop with power supply : With theft alarm, you can lock down your laptop to a power outlet or a table. When the laptop is disconnected from the power outlet, LAlarm emits a loud alarm sound. First, lock the computer by pressing [Win]+[L] key after connecting the laptop to a power outlet.

One can easily think of shutting down the laptop with the power button and then stealing it . Well, to avoid this you can disable the power button of your laptop via ‘Start’—>’Run’—>powercfg.cpl—>Press ‘Enter’—>Click on ‘Choose what the power button do’.

2) By locking down a laptop to a table : It is useful when you do not have access to a power outlet. It requires a USB flash drive and a neck strap (or similar one), which will be used to fasten to the flash drive one end and ties around a table leg or other immobile object the other end. As soon as the USB is unplugged from the laptop, the alarm goes off. Picture below explains the same.

To be very true, I am not too convinced with the 2nd method here. Actually, we can always use conventional lock. Why to make it easier for a thief to just unplug a USB to open the lock. Its true that alarm will go off but still. Perhaps, using USB with a conventional lock would give much better protection.

Restricting Laptop to a Safe Area

This can be done by defining a safe zone via IP address or a range of IP addresses. First of all, you need to check ‘Enable Perimeter alarm’ as shown below.

Afterwards, define safe zone by using IP address or IP address range via ‘Zone tab’—> ‘Add’ .

The Perimeter alarm goes off as soon as the laptop is taken outside the safe zone.

How to activate/deactivate/configure various options and other detailed information about LAlarm is present on the official website. Please visit LAlarm for the same and also for downloading LAlarm free.

Please share your thoughts via comments.

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