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The main concern while running a business is keeping your computing devices like desktops, laptops etc. and their data secure. The portability offered by laptops, increases their chance of being stolen as people are constantly leaving them unattended at public places. Many a times these devices are left behind at restaurants, subways, coffee shops, airports etc. Although the insurance company may cover the hardware, the files and data on the machine may eventually be untraceable and forever lost.
Recently BSI carried out their 8th Annual Computer Theft Survey in the United States. Here are the key findings from that survey:
- More than 5.5 Million computers were stolen in the United States in the last 3 years.
- More than half (58.7%) of the respondents have been a victim of computer theft in the last year.
- According to FBI, 97% of unprotected computers (i.e. computers that do not use any data encryption software or computer security software) are never recovered.
- 68% of the devices stolen were laptops, followed by desktops (10%) & others like PDA’s, iphone etc. (22%)
- 67% of computer theft occurred while respondent was mobile (moving about),
- 91% of respondents did not use data encryption software to encrypt the proprietary data on their stolen device.
- Average total replacement cost of each stolen computing device was $43,264.66.
- 71% of respondents reported downtime due to computer theft ranging from several days to more than a month.
- Only 21% of those surveyed used extensive data protection like dedicated data encryption software, but about 70% did not use any safeguard or security protection at all.
These numbers are very similar to the numbers in the surveys done earlier on this issue, clearly indicating that people are not doing anything more to protect their data than they were doing earlier.
If you carefully analyze the survey data, you will notice that only 3% of stolen computing devices are recovered; even then only 9% people are using data encryption software to protect their data.
Encrypt your Data for peace of mind!
We spend huge sums to protect our internal networks, but forget that there are people carrying laptops that are connected to these internal networks. These laptops are equally vulnerable to theft & hacking. This fact has been highlighted in the survey, according to which 67% of computer thefts occurred when the respondent was outdoors.
By using laptop encryption software, we could have greatly enhanced the laptop security as there is no way that the information is compromised if the laptop is lost or stolen. A theft would simply be reduced to an insurance matter and cost of the hardware plus time to rebuild the laptop.
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such thefts have become a menace…authorities must stand up and make arrangements so that these incidents are not repeated. I think use of these softwares might help.
The expanding use of laptops and their mobility has resulted in increasing number of their losses. It has been observed that laptops are taken almost everywhere by users including crowded places such as airplanes and airports, trains and railway stations, buses and terminals. Laptops have alse been taken to rest rooms where some persons use the easing time to do some work on their laptops and this also happens by motorists while waiting in cars or while resting in parks during breaks..
It is in such circumstances that many forget to keep an eye on their laptops and security is lax. It is reported that millions of laptops are lost during these times of lax security.
While the cost of the laptops is small the value of the date can be very high and cost of recovering the data may be higher. The cost may be in millions in the case of losses of critical/sensistive data regarding business strategies and policies.
The losses also happen when buildings undergo renovations while operations continue. In such cases the theft of laptops could be an inside job and thus very difficult to identify the culprits.
Managements should give serious attention to work habits with the use of laptops and other mobile computing equipment. Failure to do so is to invite financial disasters from which some may never recover.
Gursharan Singh C.M.I.I.A.
[Trainer-Knowledge Sharer-Audit Officer]
Malaysia
gursharan38@gmail.com
6019-2917178
8.2.11
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