Windows 10: My Windows laptop with sensitive information was stolen.

I have sensitive work documents on my laptop. My had been encrypted with bitlocker UNTIL windows forced another unwanted update onto my machine while i was sleeping. After the update, I was required to enter my 25 random-character bitlocker decryption key every time i opened the device in addition to my device PIN. This rendered my machine unusably troublesome to open. Windows support was useless in helping me revert to the pre-update status where i simply use my device pin to logon. So now i have unencrypted information in the hands of the thief. Is there any way for me to prevent the thief f

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Stolen laptop

My laptops was stolen and I'm trying to lock it. It's not allowing me to and I'm wondering if it's because I changed my password. I changed all my passwords when it was stolen and I'm thinking that my laptop now won't connect to Microsoft so that link
is now closed off. Is there anything I can do to fix this? I'm not able to revert back to an old password. I need to lock my laptop as it was for work and has a lot of sensitive information.

 

Stolen Laptop

Hi Tara,

Since this is regarding a stolen laptop, we suggest contacting the manufacturer of your device for better assistance.

Feel free to post back if you have other Windows concern.

 

Stolen laptop

Hello VladkoKunovský

Sorry to hear that you are in such a situation. I will help you out with this.

By "can't locate or lock it", I am assuming, you aren't able to understand how to perform these actions in the first place. To do this, you can use your Microsoft account.

1. Go to account.microsoft.com

2. Below the Devices section, find your device that has been stolen.

3. Click on View details for that device.

4. Given that this is highly sensitive information, you will be asked for your password. Fill out your account password.

5. You will be redirected to the details of your stolen device. In that, there will be a Find my device option. Click on it.

6. In a corner, your device name will be mentioned. Click on it.

7. There will be whole map surroundings of the area that your stolen device is currently on. On the safe side, use the Find function so that it remains updated at its latest.

8. After it has been completed finding, you can view the map location on which your laptop is currently on.

9. Now that you have safely known the location of your stolen laptop, you can take actions such as locking your device.

10. Next to Find, there will be a Lock option. Click on it and follow the on-screen steps.

IMPORTANT:

1. You should be signed in to your Microsoft account on your stolen device in the first place to perform the above steps. If you had been using a local account, then I, unfortunately, can't guarantee whether these steps will work out for you, since Find my device requires a linked Microsoft account on your Windows device to perform these actions.

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If the above steps didn't work out for you, then I recommend that you contact your local police next. A stolen electronic device is worth reporting to the police since there have been many malicious cases of stolen electronic devices in the past that had severe outcomes such as real identity hiding and replacing it with the one in that device. This act is famously done by scammers so I recommend that you contact your local police immediately. You should also alert your friends and relatives and any other eligible people that had directly or indirectly had contact with that device, when it was with you, on the safe side so that they can also get aware of this device's situation now and take it any necessary precautionary measures against it. Along with it, you must have been using other important services also such as the ones from Google and social media such as WhatsApp (they are famously used by people along with the Microsoft services so these are just my assumptions and not necessarily saying that you use them). Social media apps such as WhatsApp and Instagram have a logout feature that you can use to revoke those features on the stolen laptop. Google also has a Security Checkup feature to revoke features whenever necessary (in this case, due to the device being stolen). The point is to revoke any important features that you had been using on that stolen device through any applicable steps (if there are any, that is).