Having something stolen from you tends to leave an indelible feeling of violation and injustice. If what is stolen is an electronic device (e.g. laptop, phone, flashdrive), not only is the property gone but so is your data. Stolen data can be a more damaging long term than the loss of the physical device itself. The data could be personal or company data.
Countermeasures you can take to help protect your data:
- Use strong authentication to access your computer or mobile device. No matter how inconvenient it is to authenticate each time you need access, do not turn it off!
- Where possible, use technologies to encrypt the data.
- Where possible, install tools for and enable remote wiping.
- Back up your data.