Up to 12,000 laptops lost in US airports each week

According to a recently released study by Dell and the Ponemon Institute, 12,000 laptops are lost or stolen in US airports every week and, while 53% of business travelers' laptops hold sensitive company information, only 35% of business travelers take steps to protect that data while traveling. In 2007, another Ponemon study found that the average business cost when data is lost or stolen is almost $200 per record.

What these studies should drive home to small business owners is:

1. Laptop loss is extremely commonplace and, no matter how cautious your employees may be, it's almost inevitable that sooner or later one of your laptops will go AWOL;
2. Unless you have secured the data on that laptop, you may be left facing substantial remediation costs.

Thankfully, it's reasonably easy to secure a laptop and there are also some post-loss steps you can take to minimize the risks associated with a stolen laptop. See Joe Taylor Jnr's excellent articles Protecting Against Laptop Theft and Recovering from Laptop Theft for details.

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