Laptop security: insure, recover or delete?
Filing an insurance claim when employee laptops get stolen is often just not worth the effort. That’s what the Ontario Public Services Employees Union (OPSEU) discovered. OPSEU has had about a dozen incidents of theft or loss of laptops in recent years, and insurance hasn’t been very helpful in dealing with such losses.
July 11, 2007 – Brian Mckay of Palo Alto, Calif., writes: “I disagree with the assumption that the asset depreciates over time; it actually appreciates with the accumulation of data on the machine over time. The value actually spikes when the device is lost because that data in the wrong hands can cost you much more than it was originally worth.
“I know you don’t have data of value on the machine, but give me your MS Outlook for 20 minutes. I can cause your business significant damage with inappropriate e-mail to your customers, like pornography, significant price discounts, etc.
“There is no getting around the fact you must encrypt, destroy and then recovery the asset. Anything less and you are hoping to get lucky.”
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