by David C. Wyld, Southeastern Louisiana University

In the U.S., it has been estimated that upwards of a million laptops are stolen annually. This is an astonishing – and scary statistic. And it is not just companies that are affected.

Indeed, across federal agencies, leading universities, and all facets of health care and education, there is increasing focus on laptop theft, as surveys of IT executives across organizations of all types show such occurrences happening on a routine basis – often with dire consequences potentially impacting thousands of employees, customers, patients and students.

Until recently, a common misconception was that the impact of a lost or stolen laptop was merely the cost a replacing the hardware – the laptop itself, a cost that could be assumed to continue decline over time. However, in 2000, the Rand Corporation released a study that pegged the actual replacement cost of a lost laptop at found the average value to be more than $6,000.