Flying Somewhere? Keep an Eye on Your Laptop

Dell completed a study this June to understand how airports in the United States are handling lost or stolen laptops.  The study was astonishing.  Not only did they find that most airports do not have a plan to deal with, or track, missing, lost, or stolen laptops within their terminals and other areas, but the frequency of these occurrences is mind boggling.  Of 106 airports studied, the average loss of laptops per airport per week is 286.  Across all airports the total is 10,278 per week.  That's an average of 13 laptops stolen or lost per day per airport.

Detroit Metro Airport ranked  7^th in the top 10 with 575 laptops lost per week.  LAX made number one with 1200 and Chicago O'Hare ranked 4^th with 825.  So where are these laptops being stolen or lost?  According to the airport representatives the most common places are security checkpoints and departure gates.  Unfortunately the report found that only 33% of laptops that end up in the airport lost and found are ever reclaimed.  The rest are eventually disposed of.

Why are so many travelers losing their laptops?  The report states "Over 70% of business travelers feel rushed when trying to get on their flights and 60% worry that delays due to security checkpoints will cause them to miss their flight.  The stress of rushing to catch a flight combined with the number of items business travelers typically carry (i.e., laptops, cell phones, PDAs, briefcases, luggage, etc.), creates a situation that is conducive to property loss."

What can we learn from this study?  Well all travelers, not just frequent travelers, need to make sure they have a complete backup of their system the night before their departure.  An ideal backup would be a complete system backup to an external hard drive which is left at home.  We recommend Acronis True Image ($99.99) and an external hard drive ($99.99) which not only backs up your important personal and business files like Microsoft Office documents, family photos, and music, but also gets a snapshot of the operating system which can allow you to do a complete restore of your system to another computer exactly as it was before.

Another good product is LoJack for Laptops from Computrace Products. LoJack Premium retails for $59.99 and covers Theft Recovery, Data Delete, and a secure guarantee up to $1,000.  In the event a computer is stolen, LoJack can completely erase the entire hard drive of the stolen computer allowing you to keep confidential data out of the thieves hands so you don't become another victim of identity theft.

Think of these two products as life insurance for your laptop — only $260 protects your data and your identity.  Once you install these products we hope you'll never have to use them, but if you do you'll be thankful you had them.  Call us today at 248-530-1001 for more information on these products and how we can help you secure and protect your data.

Posted August 20, 2008 | Read all posts by Curtis Hays