Laptop theft statistics and laptops lost or stolen in the UK

The same qualities that make us love our laptops; make them tempting targets for thieves. More light and portable today than they have ever been, laptops are used everywhere, everyday, for business and pleasure. Everywhere we look, we find laptops of every kind; from tiny netbooks, monster laptops to everything in between. Thieves are always on the lookout for an easy target; to quickly pawn our laptops for a quick buck, or even worse, steal our data for more devious uses. To make it worse, we often seem to misplace or forget these valuable IT assets in public places or on seats of various means of transport all the time.

Have a look at recent laptop theft statistics and the shocking numbers of lost laptops in the UK.

• Recent figures from UK police forces show that over 34,000 laptops are reported stolen each year. This is almost 100 per day and only deals with those that are actually reported to the police.
  (Source: creativematch.co.uk)
   
• A laptop is stolen every 53 seconds and the Notebook Lost & Found Study, revealed that nearly 6 out of every ten stolen laptops found goes unclaimed. (Source: The Ponemon Institute, Dell, July 2008)

• More than 3,300 laptops are lost or go missing at the eight largest airports in EMEA each week. (Source: The Ponemon Institute, Dell, July 2008)

• Some 55,843 mobile phones and 6,193 other devices, such as laptops, were forgotten in taxis in the last year. (Source: Credant Technologies)

Did you know?

• 77% of organisations say protecting their data is important, but only 11% prevent it from leaving the building. (Source: toshiba.co.uk/informationassurance)

• 71% of organisations say they have procedures to comply with the Data Protection Act, but only 8% encrypt their laptop hard drives.  (Source: toshiba.co.uk/informationassurance)

Protect your laptop and valuables today with http://www.mindyourit.co.uk/Browse/IT-Security/Laptop-Security