LONDON – Business travellers in the US and Europe lose 15,648 laptops per week, according to a study by Dell.
On Dell’s behalf, Ponemon Institute surveyed 3,034 business travellers at 113 major airports located in the US, UK and Europe.
According to ITPro in the UK, Ponemon found that the airports with the highest number of lost, missing or stolen laptops included Los Angeles’ LAX, with an estimated weekly loss of 1,200 and London Heathrow, with an estimated weekly loss of 900.
Of those lost laptops, the survey found that 43 percent were reclaimed in Europe, compared to only 33 percent in the US.
Ponemon attributed travellers feeling that they were either being rushed, carrying too many things or worrying about flight delays as to reasons why laptops are most commonly lost.
Worryingly, the survey found a high number of travellers who took no steps to protect or secure the information contained on their laptops.
Fifty per cent of trusting US travellers said that they left their laptop computers under the watchful eye of a fellow passenger, compared to 42 per cent of UK travellers who did the same.
Up to 33 per cent of German respondents were most likely to employ whole disk encryption, while only 12 per cent of UK respondents did so.
In light of these findings, Dell and Ponemon made several recommendations to limit loss and ensure the data contained within laptops remains confidential and secure.
Such measures include labelling laptops to ensure that if they are lost they can returned to their owner more easily, and taking appropriate security measures to protect laptops, such as using encryption technologies to avoid misuse of data.
