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"Steal me! Hijack me!" - how your laptop uses WiFi to attract thieves

"Turn off your WiFi" is the message for laptop owners going shopping. Otherwise, it can summon thieves, or worse.

Because the latest laptops have a set time - sometimes up to 30 minutes - before they go into sleep mode when the laptop lid is shut, "it doesn't take a genius to realise that shopping malls around 6pm on weekdays can be a prime source of potential notebook computers, just waiting to be stolen from cars," warns Sean Glynn, marketing boss for Credant.

In a PR release today, Credant warned laptop users to turn off their WiFi signals before stowing their laptop in the boot of their car or stashing their laptop in the office cupboard or desk drawer, apparently out of sight of thieves.

The company says it has seen signs of this activity, not yet in the UK, but in other parts of the world. But the UK is a prime opportunity, it thinks.

"BT Openzone recently announced it had passed the million WiFi access point mark in the UK and cellular carriers are also boosting their WiFi coverage areas to take the load off their hard-pressed 3G networks, which all adds up to something of a WiFi explosion in the UK," said Sean Glynn, Credant's VP Marketing.

"This in turn has triggered the widespread availability of low-cost keyfob WiFi detectors for under a fiver, and quite sophisticated directional detectors for around the 30 pounds mark, both of which can be used by thieves to detect the presence of an out of sight laptop," he added.

The risk of losing your computer may be the least of your worries, however. Just getting access to it may be enough to allow identity theft or access to corporate passwords.

"You may not be able to totally prevent your laptop being stolen, but only switching on your WiFi when you really need it, and, of course, encrypting your data on the notebook drive, will go a long way to preventing your computer becoming just another statistic," Glynn added.