A new study revealed that almost 14, 000 portable computers are lost every week in airports across the United States. That's about 700,000 per year just in airports!!!
Another interesting tidbit of information showed that 53 percent of surveyed Mobile Professionals carry confidential information on their devices and 65% of those who carry confidential information don’t take any steps to protect It.
Mobile professionals have to realize that if you take ANY kind of confidential information outside of your offices, it should be encrypted and if you're a healthcare professional you MUST encrypt it.
A recent analysis of recent HIPAA compliance violations shows a very high percentage of PHI exposures are the result of lost or stolen notebooks or other personal devices like thunb drives that were not properly protected. If you don't, the potential penalty is up to $50,000 per incident and REMEMBER - Every individual PHI record you expose is a separate incident! Do the math - 100 patient records unprotected/unencrypted that are lost (even temporarily) = 100 times potentially $50K each in fines not to mention potential jail time.
The cost of adding software to each portable device that will encypt and password protect is incidental compared to the exposure to penalties you could face.
How much? There are tons of vendors of encryption software that will charge anywhere from $25 to $150 to encypt your notebook devices. Some A/V vendors also have alternatives too but if you have either Windows 7 or Windows 8 on your notebook, you already have access to a feature called BitLocker which will encrypt and protect your valuable confidential information to a level that satisfies regulatory requirements.
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