E-Business
Issue No. 13 - October/November 2003
Datatheft
by David Twiss
Based on Australian laptop theft statistics for 2001, and assuming no increase since then, a laptop is stolen in Australia about every 10 minutes.
It’s certainly hard to get recent statistics on laptop theft. The 2003 FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey lumps laptop theft with other forms of computer crime, as does the 2003 Australian Computer Crime Survey. In fact some of the most comprehensive data comes from insurance industry reports.
In NSW during 2001 there were 19,000 laptop thefts, suggesting approximately 50,000 laptop thefts for Australia as a whole. Reports from the USA indicate during 2001 there were 591,000 laptop stolen, up by 53% on the preceding year. That suggests that the true figures for the Australian laptop thefts for the year just past are probably much higher than 50,000 estimated for 2001.
Amongst thefts during 2001 that have been publicly acknowledged were 184 laptops stolen from the FBI, and more than 200 from the British Ministry of Defence. During a 6 month period 2900 laptops were left in London taxis, and the year before an MI5 agent admitted to losing his laptop containing sensitive information at a train station. The CEO of Qualcom had his laptop stolen from the podium of the conference venue where he had just delivered an address.
Of laptops stolen, more than 85% are never recovered. Insurance statistics only show part of the picture. Many thefts never become public knowledge, or if they do their disclosure is unintended.
It’s worth thinking about why laptops get stolen so much. Some of the theft is just to sell the laptop to get money, but rather more worrying is theft to get the data stored on the laptop.
When a company has a laptop stolen loss may take several forms: the replacement cost of the laptop; disruption to business operations; potential loss of data (if it was not backed up); disclosure of the company’s corporate data, and possible disclosure of other third parties privat...
