How To Setup And Use Anti-Theft Feature In ESET Smart Security

On Friday of last week, we reported about the availability of beta versions of ESET Smart Security 6 and NOD32 Antivirus for Windows operating system. The newest version of ESET Smart Security ships with an excellent feature that lets you locate lost or stolen laptop or any other computer running Windows and ESET Smart Security 6.

Using Anti-Theft feature, you can monitor your missing device and see the position on a map when the device comes online. The feature also lets you access web camera on the missing device to secretly take snapshots.

The feature looks promising as ESET Smart Security users can now easily locate their PCs without having to install other software. Below are the instructions that you need to follow to setup and use Anti-Theft feature.

How to setup Anti-Theft feature:

Step 1: Make sure that you are running the latest version of Smart Security, as Anti-Theft is present in v6.0 and above only. You can download and install Smart Security from this official download page.

Step 2: Setting up Anti-Theft is simple. After installing Smart Security, double-click on the ESET Smart Security icon running in the system tray to launch Smart Security home screen.

Step 3: On the home screen, you will see Configure Anti-Theft now option. Click on the option. In the next screen, you will be asked to enter your ESET account username and password. If you don’t have an account, you can create on by clicking on the Create new ESET account and then by entering name, language and email and other information.

Step 4: Once done, click on the Next button. You will see “adding device successfully completed” message. That’s it! You have successfully setup your ESET Anti-Theft feature.

How to locate the lost or stolen device:

Step 1: When your laptop or PC goes missing, visit http://my.eset.com and login using your ESET account.

Step 2: On the ESET Anti-Theft page, click on your device (if you have added two or more computers), click Status menu and then click Mark as missing button.

When you mark the selected PC as missing, ESET Anti-Theft will automatically prohibit access to all user accounts except for a fake user account (created by ESET) and starts taking pictures (using built-in webcam) and screenshots at regular intervals.

Step 3: Click on the Activity to menu to view secretly taken screenshots of your desktop, pictures taken from webcam, and last known geographical location.

Note that this feature works only if the stolen or lost device is connected to the Internet. That is, if the person who has stolen your computer decides not to connect to the Internet, you won’t be able to locate your PC using ESET Anti-Theft.