Remote Controlled 'Kill Switch' for Stolen Laptops
Lost and stolen company laptops have brought much angst to many a CEO over the years but that could all change with new technology from Fujitsu that enables data on a notebook PCs hard drive to be rendered useless remotely.
The solution, built by Fujitsu and wireless provider Willcom is based on a communications module that is built into laptop PCs, and enables owners to not only completely lock down the data, but also to issue and execute the command even when the PC is turned off, or the battery has been depleted.
Average Cost of a Stolen or Lost Laptop is $49,246
Lost and stolen machines are one of the most common ways that corporate data is compromised. A recent report by the Ponemon Institute claims it costs companies an average of $49,246 when a laptop is lost or stolen. (PDF)Although this value is based on various components, the study found that the faster the company learns that the laptop is lost, the lower the average cost. If the discovery is made on the same day, the average cost is $8,950; if it takes more than a week to discover the loss, the average cost rises to approximately $115,849.
Average cost for each component from the Ponemon report
How the Kill Switch Works
The Fujitsu/Willcom technology plans to protect data in two ways; deletion and lockdown. In the first instance, and although the data itself will not be deleted, Fujitsu plans to allow remote deletion of the encryption key that allows access to the hard drive; rendering the data unreadable and recoverable. For further protection the laptops will have a "PC Lock" function that prevents them from being used at all by stopping the laptop from booting up.
Fujitsu plans to begin offering this technology in Japan first, beginning third quarter 2009.
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Love that new service, I was already considering lo-jack for mine!
The average cost of laptop loss is bogus and utterly made up with no tangible basis. Many times those subcosts are much, much lower. Let's review them:
- Laptop replacement: Many people will buy a refurbished laptop from eBay - You can devide that price by half
- Detection and escalation cost: I don't know how that costs money to begin with
- Firensics & investigation: Same as above. Sometimes you just don't investigate when you know you won't see your laptop again (ex. on a business trip)
- Data breach cost: I don't know how they found this amount. By the time the thief retrieves the data (if he ever bothers!), the ex-owner will have changed all his passwords and asked his bank to cancel his credit card number (if needed).
- Intellectual property loss: Only for a restricted number of employees, and again, this is very variable.
- Lost productivity cost: Most of the time it's recovered on the person's personal time, as the boss doesn't want to hear about the employee's problem, he wants him to work.
- Legal & regulatory costs: No idea why this would cost anything.
Obviously "Jerry" has never worked for a multinational company. A number of years ago, a number of laptops got stolen from the trunks of cars of staff who went to various lunch places near the office. When there are sensitive proposals or other work (often not backed up yet) on the laptop, then it's not just the factors shown (and when you report the laptop stolen, there is automatically paperwork involved that involves at least that cost, not to mention having to recreate the work, repair of customer relationship after delivering late, etc. Good post.
Are you retarded? Laptops don't cost $50,000 if lost/stolen.
It only costs what a replacement laptop does.
Learn to use Truecrypt, it's free data encryption software that can encrypt your entire files system. Then learn to keep backups because if you don't have a backup of files on your laptop, than you're an idiot.
A thief has to sell the goods: the hardware and the data.
The hardware is relatively simple.
However finding a customer for the data is more complex.
Who is interested in the data from company XYZ, Inc.?
It is a limited market he can address.
The thief cannot go and ask the competitors directly.
I think when you wrote this: "rendering the data unreadable and recoverable" you meant UNrecoverable! I double checked with the Fujitsu article. Now I feel much safer. :)
good idea, with remote control my laptops more safety
The cost of implementing this new technology is quite ridiculous. There will obviously be a way to de-activate the technology, and, those same employees that do not encrypt their data, make back-ups, look after their laptops etc, will be the same employees who de-activate the technology, because it will 'slow' them down. Once again, we are trying to over the people issues of information security by implementing a technology solution, that should in fact be addressed by a policy solution, that is enforced through a people solution. Although I work on behalf of Fujitsu myself, I am totally opposed to this concept (in my private capacity, in my OWN opinion, let me hasten to add). It is removing the onus of responsibility from the user. The same problem was found back in the early nineties with desktops being stolen (there was still a market for stolen desktops then). The solution - encryption. It worked then, and still works now. Why re-invent the wheel.
please visit http://www.thelaptopcop.com
both personal and corporate resolutions can be found there.
I absolutely have to see the metric they used to reach that absolutely arbitrary number they have down there. While I agree with some of the aboce commenters that some simple data protection measures would keep them safe, I think that these companies actually prefer not to implement them. Think about it. They lose a laptop and they get a 50k payout. Even if the info was encrypted, why would they report it..