How exactly are people losing laptops which contain sensitive information?

Question

And then it becomes an identity theft issue. Why is there even sensitive information ON laptops? Sensitive information should be kept on secure servers on-site. Unmovable! Never should it even leave the building!

Answer 1

The Info is usually on Laptops simply because transferring the Data is more secure that way than sending via ftp.
However, the losses of Laptops have been done by people who have not followed security procedures... and yes, this sort of info needs to be on secure servers, as secure as servers of this kind can be.
The DOD procedures for data security are documented, and some are available at sites like the NIST, or discussed at places like FCW.com ; so they have their own reasons for having info on Laptops. and the current standards are Hard Drives with Passwords, and high level encryption on the disk.
For whatever reason, they do have this info on Laptops . Whilst it needs to be secure the info does leave the building, and the difficulty is that the process of moving departmental data from Department A to Department B has to be done securely... and thats what DOD standards, and NIST processes are supposed to govern

Answer 2

First, companies and government agencies are trying to fix this by going to encrypted file systems: if a computer is lost, the data is unreadable by strangers. Within a few years, this will migrate right into a computer's hard drive controller and be fairly invisible to users.

As to never moving sensitive data, it can also get out when an old computer is surplussed off without the hard drive being erased. So your suggestion isn't enough.

As to sensitive information not being allowed on laptops, many people's jobs don't give them any choice. Their work may mean lots of travel *AND* the need to quickly get that data. Many people don't even have a fixed desktop computer. And frankly, just about *ANY* data can have details that a company doesn't want to share, whether it is business strategy or contracts being negotiated or nonpublic price lists or even just a list of names of clients. And once your day job puts that data on your computer (in whatever form), it's just a matter of a computer being misplaced or stolen. The ones you hear about on the news are just the highest-profile ones. Most lost computers don't affect a million VA beneficiaries -- just some middle manager getting bawled out because the details of the 'O Reilly' account could fall into a competitor's hands, or some other much smaller sphere of impact.

Answer 3

I heard somewhere that those ppl get pissed at their boss so they take the comp and lose it on purpose, like leave it in a bus, or forget it at a cafe. Forcing the company to take full responsibility, which makes the company look bad! haha..it is quite twisted!

Answer 4

Well,,, I'm just going to throw this out there and suggest that they are probably just really irresponsible people.
Either that or they are putting way to much faith in the security features of their laptops.