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12,000 Laptops Lost Each Week at US Airports

by Blake Besharian on July 1, 2008 at 03:05 PM


travelers carry laptops with secret information

In these digital times, it seems as though everything about us these days is reduced to bits and bytes and stored on computers -- so it's only fair to ask that those computers be secure. Well, according to a new study by the Ponemon Institute, half of all the business travelers surveyed said they fly regularly with important information on their laptops. Most of them -- more than two thirds -- don't use any type of security system in the event that laptops are lost or stolen.

Clearly, this is bad news, especially since the study also estimates that about 12,000 laptops are lost every week (based on interviews with officials at 106 American airports). This means business travelers are losing several laptops a week. Eventually, one of those laptops is going to be loaded with our Social Security numbers and names.

So for all you mobile workers out there, read this: We know you're not going to stop traveling with this kind of information on your computers, but please use any encryption software that came with your computer to lock that stuff up. Even just setting your computer to require a password to get on will keep your information secure from garden variety thieves.

If you're willing to spend some cash, may we recommend PGP's encryption software for company's or SecuriKey's combination of hardware and software authentication. And, for the the cash strapped but wary, TrueCrypt offers free encryption software for all operating systems. [Source: The Statesman]



Tags: encryption, expire-images2009-6-30, security, summernews, travel

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