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REAL LIFE NEWS: HOW MUCH DOES A LOST LAPTOP COST?

by Hazed

If you lose a laptop, what does it cost you? The cost of the computer itself, obviously. The time spent in having to replace it. The value of whatever data was on the laptop that you failed to backup. What does that come to?

Well, according to a recent survey of 28 US companies, a single lost or stolen laptop costs an average of $50,000.

The survey was sponsored by Intel and carried out by the Ponemon Institute. The companies involved reported 138 separate cases of missing laptops. The value of these missing machines was calculated by factoring in the following: laptop replacement, data breach cost, loss of productivity, investigation cost, and other variables. Add them up and the average lost laptop costs a firm $49,246.

That's the average... the maximum reported value was just short of a whopping one million dollars. The most expensive part of the cost was the data breach, which made up about 80% of the total.

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