How To Configure a Laptop To Self-Destruct When Forced Logon

---

What if you are forced to reveal password of your laptop but you have to protect certain data inside the computer? You can easily configure your laptop to self-destruct in such coercive cases.

First create and configure a forced account in your computer according to the instruction below. A forced account is a computer user account that is configured to destroy sensitive data in a forced logon or a logon as a result of forced username and password disclosure. When you are forced, you disclose the username and password of the forced account instead of your regular account. When someone logs onto the forced account in your computer, your computer will destroy the sensitive data behind the scene. But your computer will continue to run as usual as if nothing had happened.

1. Create an ordinary user account, which you will use it as a forced user account. (If you need detailed instruction, see How to create a forced account)
2. Log onto your computer with an administrator account.
3. Create a scheduled task for the forced account, so that data is destroy upon logon. (For detail, see How to configure a forced account)

Optional steps:

• Copy some sensitive-looking files onto the forced account and do not delete them.
• By the default setting, Windows logon screen shows all the available usernames but you wish to hide usernames, see How to hide user names from the logon screen.
• Encrypt all the folders that contain sensitive data. (Although you have full disk encryption, folder level encryption is still useful.)

---

Quick Links

• How To Configure a Laptop To Self-Destruct When Stolen
• Why destroy encrypted data?
• Self-destruction Demo
• How to lock down a laptop with a flash drive
  

---

Article ID: 18, Last Updated:  Dec 29, 2009