A new report by the Ponemon Institute in conjunction with Intel claims that the average cost to the enterprise of a stolen or lost laptop is $49,246, once you factor in not just replacement but intellectual property loss, lost productivity, forensics, and other downsides.

Report: average stolen laptop cost is $50K; Intel: buy vPro – Ars Technica.

This is an interesting report, but it is interesting to think about the impact of full disk encryption and full data synchronisation back to base on a continuous basis on the cost. The headings that they used are:

1. Laptop replacement cost: $1,582
2. Detection & escalation cost: $262
3. Forensics & investigation cost: $814
4. Data breach cost: $39,297
5. Intellectual property loss: $5,871
6. Lost productivity cost: $283
7. Other legal and regulatory costs: $1,117

Now with the disk encryption and data synchronisation, you can see a different picture:

1. Laptop replacement cost: $1,582 (or less than $500 for a netbook!)
2. Detection & escalation cost: $262 – probably the same
3. Forensics & investigation cost: $0, what forensics or investigation do you need when the machine is a dead weight without a valid logon
4. Data breach cost: $0 as there would be no data breach
5. Intellectual property loss: $0 as there is little or nothing lost through the data sync to base
6. Lost productivity cost: $283 (probably the same)
7. Other legal and regulatory costs: $0 as there is no loss, so no legal or regulatory costs

Now this is a simplistic view, but you can see that with using low cost laptops/netbooks, good full disk encryption and well implemented file sync, you can reduce the ‘cost’ of a laptop loss from $49,226 to $1,045. Even allowing for some error, the cost benefits are good in a loss situation.