Intel® Anti-Theft Technology (Intel® AT) for Laptop Security

What is it?

Intel® Anti-Theft Technology is an intelligent way for you to help secure the mobile assets of your workforce. This intelligent laptop security technology is built into select 2nd generation Intel® Core™ and 2nd generation Intel® Core™ vPro™ processor families. If a laptop is lost or stolen when the user is out of the office, the PC will be shut down and useless to thieves. It not only helps protect the intellectual property of your company at the pre-boot level, but also allows for fast reinstatement of a laptop without damage to information, should the laptop be recovered. Intel AT is available on select 2nd generation Intel Core and 2nd generation Intel Core vPro processor family–based laptops when activated with a service subscription from an Intel AT-enabled service.

Why it matters.

Laptop theft costs corporate America over USD 5.4 billion each year.In everyday life, this amounts to 12,000 laptops disappearing every week from U.S. airports alone, and a laptop being stolen every 53 seconds.¹ The problem of data security becomes increasingly significant as employees are more mobile. Add to this the daunting challenges of healthcare privacy laws, and asset security can have a significant impact on your business.

How it works.

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Protection for laptop users.

Intel Anti-Theft Technology (Intel AT) is built into the processor of your laptop, so it is active as soon as your machine is switched on—even before startup. If your laptop is lost or stolen, a local or remote “poison pill” can be activated that renders the PC inoperable by blocking the boot process. This means that predators cannot hack into your system at startup. It works even without Internet access and, unlike many other solutions, is hardware-based, so it is tamper-resistant.

Laptop Security for your company.

Intel® AT is designed to give IT administrators maximum flexibility and secure control of network assets. Since it is built-in at the processor level, the IT administrator has a range of options to help secure mobile assets, such as:

• Disable access to encrypted data by deleting essential elements of the cryptographic materials that are required to access the encrypted data on the hard drive.
• Disable the PC using a “poison pill” to block the boot process, even if the boot order is changed or the hard drive is replaced or reformatted. Regardless of the PC’s state, it will check as soon as it starts to wake up for any kill pill that has been sent, including via text message.
• Customizable “Theft Mode” message allows the IT administrator to send a message to whoever starts up the laptop to notify them that it has been reported stolen.
• Excessive login attempts trigger PC disable after an administrator-defined number of failed attempts. At this point, the Intel AT trigger is tripped and the system locks itself down.
• Failure to check in with the central server can trigger PC disable when a check-in time is missed. The IT administrator can set system check-in intervals. Upon a missed check-in time, the system is locked down until the user or IT administrator reactivates the system.

Businesses now have built-in client-side intelligence to secure sensitive data, regardless of the state of the operating system, hard drive, boot order, or network connectivity. This hardware-based technology provides compelling tamper resistance and increased protection to extend your security capabilities anywhere, anytime—on or off the network.