Survey says 62 percent of companies believe missing computers go unnoticed

Absolute Software Corporation polled 402 of its corporate customers about their concerns regarding computer security and data breaches. By their own estimates, 16 percent of the companies believe a significant data breach can cost $1 million or more, 20 percent believe it can cost close to $100,000 and 22 percent believe a data breach will cost nearly $10,000.

One in five (20 percent) of the responding companies report experiencing a data breach in the past and believe that the majority (61 percent) of data breaches are perpetrated by internal employees. However, one in five also believe that sensitive data has been compromised that no one in the company has yet discovered.

The survey also shows that 39 percent of companies have had confidential business information lost, 22 percent have had employee information breached, 22 percent have had customer information misplaced and 16 percent have had Social Security numbers stolen.

Corporations need to have a multi-layered approach to computer and data security, according to John Livingston, Absolute Software chairman and CEO.

Absolute Software, Vancouver, British Columbia, is the provider of Computrace firmware-based computer theft recovery, data protection and asset-tracking software.