Hello all. First time I have used these boards and I hope this is the most relevant section for this type of question. My company manages networks for other companies and the main tool we use for management and script / application deployment is Kaseya. One of our customers had a laptop stolen from them and are wondering if there is a way for us to remotely wipe the hard drive. I know we can schedule scripts to run as soon as the machine connects to any network with internet access, my main concern is, how to write the actual script. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
I highly doubt this could be done, especially if the partition you are trying to format is running the operating system. You should also know that formatting a hard-drive does not mean that the data is gone forever, it can still be retrieved. The ideal thing would have been to keep the whole drive encrypted, through the use of software such as Microsoft's Bitlocker along with using a username that requires a password to make sure the data cannot be accessed by a third party that got a hold of the hardware.
Yah, I was thinking that it might not be possible (I'm still learning a lot of things about IT management). I'm almost positive that the hard drive was not partitioned separately, so the OS and everything else is on the same drive. I am unsure if our actual network admins used any kind of preventive measure (like what you mentioned). Is there any other options at this point for either deleting info or making it in-accessable?
What you can do depends on what OS is install im guessing it is either XP or Vista. You might be able to just run format http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;941961&sd=rss&spid=11712 Edit : Format Doesnt Work : http://www.istartedsomething.com/20070322/format-c-vista/ Maybe run a virus/trojan on it? Although if they have UAC or decent antivirus would make it harder. If the person that stole it does not know of any sensitive data, he might wipe disk after problems, if he did not wipe it already.
I dont think there is any option for that stolen laptop data to be deleted. As its away from you its gone. Try consider encrypting laptop data now onwards. Regards Sreyas