Dell recently commissioned the Ponemon Institute to conduct a study into data loss and laptop theft amongst business travelers. They interviewed 800 business travelers, and surveyed 106 airports in an effort to discover how laptops get lost or stolen, and how travelers can protect themselves more effectively.

One of the more interesting facts revealed by the report was that 12,000 laptops become lost or stolen in US airports every week. In other words, one laptop is stolen every 8 minutes.

Also, the report indicated that fifty three percent of business travelers were carrying corporate data that they considered to be of a sensitive nature. Despite this, sixty five percent of those who said they were carrying confidential data had not properly protected their data.

From a business management perspective, there are a few things you should keep in mind when it comes to data loss prevention.

• First, you’ll want to make sure that you’re using a fully-automated backup system. This way, employees can’t forget to back up their data on a regular basis as they might with a manual system.
• Today, most high-quality online backup systems are equipped for mobile laptops, and will automatically upload all recent changes as soon as it detects an internet connection. (This presents another major advantage over traditional tape backups)
• If you implement a system that backs up continuously every time a file is saved, you can also minimize your data loss window or “Restore Point Objective”.
• If you’re managing many laptops at once, you may want to find a system that offers some sort of centralized management portal. This way, you have the convenience of being able to easily and quickly manage all of your mobile users from one place.

Beyond simple data loss, you also need to consider your compliance obligations.

In the event of a lawsuit, all of your company-wide laptops may be subject to an eDiscovery request. This is hard enough when all of your machines are in one office, but it can be a real nightmare when your machines are spread out across many different physical locations.

That’s why it’s also important to implement some sort of a well-organized email archiving system, rather than simply having each laptop store their own Outlook PST files locally.

While you were reading this article, a laptop was lost or stolen somewhere at a US airport. Given the risks involved in business travel, it’s important to take proper measures to protect your data while on the road.

About Storagepipe Solutions:

We provide online backup and email archiving solutions to help protect your laptop data while traveling.

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