Have you lost your laptop, PDA, or cellular phone sometime in the past? If so then you have plenty of company. A recent survey conducted by Pointsec Mobile Technologies revealed that 25 percent of the people surveyed have lost their PDA and 40 percent have lost their mobile phones.
The survey revealed that this holiday season people are most likely to lose their mobile devices in the back of a taxi on the way home from a Christmas party or after having gone on a shopping spree. The next most likely place to lose a device is at the place you went, such as a bar or restaurant.
As you are well aware, mobile devices often contain sensitive information such as private contact information of associates, financial information such as access codes and account numbers, etc. So losing mobile devices represents a much greater loss than the value of the device itself – it could lead to fraud or identity theft.
Pointsec has some rather plain and simple advice for mobile device users this holiday season, which might seem rather obvious but should probably be pointed out anyway: If your devices are not protected with encryption and passwords then leave them behind when you go out to events or shopping this holiday season. Doing so could save you a lot of time and frustration if they were to be lost or stolen.
