Is it possible to do a remote wipe of a system?

My office had a break-in over the weekend, and several laptops were stolen. Mine wasn't one of them, but I'm curious - the owners of the stolen computers (Windows and Mac) are all talking about remote wipe software. Is there anything like this for Linux? Something that would allow me to remotely wipe my system if it's ever lost or stolen.

Solution 1:

Prey has some limited wiping ability. It can delete some files (including passwords an thunderbird mails) and can lock the computer.

It's way easier to setup and use than a ssh server, but it's much less flexible and powerful.

Solution 2:

Yes. Several solutions exist, and I guess a relatively simple one would be to use dyndns or some sort of dynamic dns service combined with an ssh server on your laptop: then, as soon as the stolen laptop is connected to the internet, you can connect to it and erase its content.

Solution 3:

If you are worried about data that get stolen, you should not trust software for wiping data. The clever thief use a LiveCD or takes out the hard drive to browse / copy the data.

The best way to prevent data theft is by encrypting the (whole) drive. This will add a small performance hit, but your data will stay save. I'm using LUKS for full disk encryption. Be sure to use a long, lengthy, uncommon / random password.