Government revises figures for the number of missing laptops

The Ministry of Defence has admitted that a laptop containing sensitive information was stolen as an official checked out of a Liverpool hotel, according to reports.

At the same time, Defence Secretary Des Browne was forced to issue revised figures after "anomalies in the reporting process" were discovered. He reported that the MoD had 658 laptops stolen in the past four years, almost double the 347 previously claimed to have gone missing. In addition, 89 laptops have been lost, and only 32 recovered.

Alan Bentley, VP of Lumension Security EMEA: “Data leakage is not just about prevention, it is about the confidence to report on all the information transferred to and from removable media. As sensitive data becomes more and more of a target, it is imperative that Government departments know exactly what data is held on what device.’