by Edward C Baig, USA Today
April, 9, 2002
Sadly, there is war again overseas, but then, as now, you need not harbor military secrets to fret about a potential laptop heist. Whether it's your personal finance data on Quicken or proprietary marketing plans that must be kept from an unscrupulous competitor, civilians routinely carry revealing bits best kept out of foreign hands. Of course, even when the stored information isn't so hush-hush, a bad guy (or gal) will gladly fence a notebook for a quick dollar.
According to the 2002 Computer Security Institute/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey, the theft of laptops led to an average financial loss of $89,000 among the corporations and government agencies who responded. (Only a small percentage of the sum actually relates to the hardware cost.)