Security Expert Touts GPS as Top Theft Protection

“Organizations faced with lost data often incur financial costs related to fines, credit monitoring for victims, public relations damage control, and class action litigation,” said Siciliano, president of IDTheftSecurity.com. “Companies are only hurting themselves when they ignore the logical alternative to these costs: safeguarding laptops by equipping them with affordable GPS tracking technology.”

Siciliano provides consumer education solutions to Fortune 500 companies and their clients. The Privacy Learning Institute recently featured him on its Web site. This year, Siciliano has discussed identity theft on CNBC’s “On the Money” multiple times, on NBC’s “Today Show,” and on FOX News. He is author of “The Safety Minute: 01.”

Last week Reuters and others reported on the theft of a laptop computer belonging to General Electric Co. The machine, stolen from a locked hotel room where a GE employee authorized to use the computer had left it, contained the Social Security numbers of approximately 50,000 current and former employees of the company.

According to the 2002 Computer Security Institute/FBI Computer Crime & Security Survey, the theft of a laptop results in an average financial loss of $89,000, with only a small percentage of the sum actually relating to the hardware cost.

“An enormous percentage of small and large businesses continue to sit completely idle,” said Dan Yost, chief technology officer at MyLaptopGPS (www.MyLaptopGPS.com), whose product of the same name can track, via the Internet, any stolen or lost laptop worldwide. “Files are not encrypted, covert tracking is not installed, and remote control of the laptop data is not even considered.”

The incident involving GE’s laptop computer was the latest in a string of far-reaching, highly publicized losses and outright thefts of thousands of laptops this past year at the Commerce Department, the Veterans Affairs Department, Hotels.com, and Equifax Inc.

“The potential financial cost from this past year’s losses and thefts alone is staggering,” said Siciliano. “Because of this, organizations owe it to themselves, employees, and customers to minimize the impact of laptop computer loss and theft.”

For a nominal monthly fee that pales in comparison to the financial cost of lost laptops, MyLaptopGPS uses GPS to track these machines when they are lost or stolen. The product also installs software that encrypts and silently removes the important files from them—returning these electronic documents to the rightful user while placing them out of a criminal’s reach.

“MyLaptopGPS brings enormous piece of mind,” said Yost. “This product turns the tables and enables businesses to remotely, covertly, and inexpensively destroy stolen data—with or without recovering it first—and, at the same time, track a laptop thief.”