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An increasingly mobile workforce is putting corporations’ sensitive and confidential information at great risk. It is the information age and employees are carrying more information on their laptops than ever before. These so called power users of corporate data are losing their laptops at such diverse locations as airports, conferences, in taxis, in rental cars and in hotels, just to name a few locations vulnerable to losing a laptop. With each lost laptop there is the risk that sensitive data about customers, employees and business operations will end up in the wrong hands.
The Cost of a Lost Laptop
In total, 138 separate cases involving a lost laptop computer used by an employee, temporary employee or contractor. It is our belief that this study will help companies understand the financial implications when just one employee or contractor’s laptop is missing or stolen.
Among the study’s key findings:
???? The average value of a lost laptop is $49,246. This value is based on seven cost components: replacement cost, detection, forensics, data breach, lost intellectual property costs, lost productivity and legal, consulting and regulatory expenses.
???? What makes a lost laptop costly to a company is the potential for a data breach to occur. In the cases we studied, the occurrence of a data breach represents 80% of the cost.
???? The second highest cost component is attributed to intellectual property loss. When the cost of a data breach is removed, intellectual property loss represents 59% of the total cost.
???? The faster the company learns that a laptop is lost, the lower the average cost. If a company discovers the loss in the same day, the average cost is $8,950. If it takes more than one week, the average cost rises significantly to approximately $115,849.
???? Lost productivity is not a significant cost to companies. When employees have down time due to losing their laptops, it represents only 1% of the total cost.
???? While lost laptop costs appear to be correlated to position in an organization, the most senior level respondents do not experience the highest average cost. The average cost of a lost laptop for a senior executive is $28,449 and the highest average costs are for manager and director, $60,781 and $61,040 respectively.
Download the study here.
