The numbers are, of course, staggering. What’s more, customer records went missing at the highest rate (55 percent), followed by intellectual property (43 percent), credit card details (21 percent) and financial information (20 percent).

And, again, this is just in Australia. What’s the story elsewhere? Well, as far as security is concerned, it’s not that good.

According to a study from the Verizon Business RISK Team of 500 security breaches that occurred between 2004 and 2007, most organizations seem to lack the capacity even to know when a breach has occurred, even though most breaches are seen as easily achievable: Sixty-six percent of breaches, for instance, affect data that the organization does “not know was on the system,” three-quarters of breaches are “not discovered,” and a commanding 83 percent of breaches are “not highly difficult” to conduct.

And, amid the confusion and, frankly, bumbling practices, the number of breaches continues to mount, last month already surpassing last year’s total. Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30 of this year, the total number of data breaches was 516, according to an ongoing tally by The Identity Theft Resource Center® (ITRC) announced on Oct. 6. The ITRC’s total for 2007 was 446 breaches, which suggested that the final number for 2008 would dwarf last year’s.

So, we have a picture: rampant data breaches; ineffective, nonexistent, or just plain clueless security practices; and laptop computers playing a key role. But security measures for mobile computing equipment don’t have to be difficult or too expensive to implement; they can be as simple and effective as laptop tracking from MyLaptopGPS.