More than one million laptops containing valuable company data have been lost or stolen in the past 12 months, a new study from Sony's VAIO Digital Business has found.
In a poll of 600 UK businesses, it found that one in four had lost devices in the last year, with most blaming bring your device (BYOD) practices, lax security and rebel workers as the cause.
Despite the potential for huge data breaches, just 28 per cent of that number said they had anti-theft security programmes installed on their laptops.
Some 75 per cent of respondents stated that data security is of the utmost importance to their business, yet 90 per cent admitted that their staff can access company information from their own devices regardless of policy.
In addition to that, 46 per cent said they would ignore company policies and continue to use their own devices if the firm provided them with technologies which they believe are sub-standard.
The study also found that 82 per cent rarely change their passwords despite it being recommended that they do so at least once a month. 20 per cent said they never change their passwords at all and 17 per cent admitted to only updating when prompted.
The report said that 56 per cent of firms have remote back-up software so data can be retrieved in the event of theft or a disaster, 42 per cent had some kind of encryption for their data, but just 25 per cent had remote lockdown technology and only 18 per cent used solutions which enable them to track devices by location.
