With the increased capacity & capability of mobile devices and their pervasiveness in todays business world. Security both physical and electronic of the information is growing significantly in importance. Infoworld has an article about data theft from the stolen laptop of an MCI Employee.

Excerpts:
The missing data include names and social security numbers stored on a laptop that was stolen last month from a car parked in the home garage of an MCI financial analyst, said Linda Laughlin, an MCI spokeswoman. The MCI employee, whom Laughlin declined to identify, was authorized to have the data on her laptop where she was using it to analyze financial trends for the company, she said.

Though MCI is now investigating the "policies, procedures and circumstances surrounding the theft," the company does not believe that the analyst violated MCI policy, Laughlin said. MCI uses encryption technology to protect its corporate data, but the company is now in the process of evaluating new security technologies, including stronger encryption software. "What we'll do is we'll go and enhance some of the tools that employees can use on their laptops," Laughlin said.

The MCI theft is just the latest in a series of high-profile mishaps in which companies have lost large quantities of personal information. Earlier this month, Time Warner Inc. lost 40 backup tapes containing data on 600,000 current and former employees. And ID thieves have gained access to data on hundreds of thousands of people following computer break-ins at ChoicePoint Inc. and Reed Elsevier Group PLC's LexisNexis Group.

Prashanth RaiSource: InfoworldTags: Security, Mobile.