67,000 phones to be lost or stolen during the Olympics

Numbers of smartphones and other portable networked devices have exploded over the past few years. As a result, this year’s Games will see the largest-ever risk of corporate and personal data loss during an Olympics period, with an estimated 214.4 terabytes of potentially sensitive data likely to be lost or stolen – an equivalent of 200 million books’ worth of data.

50,000 mobile phones are lost or stolen in the London area over any two-week period. During the Olympics, the total population in London is expected to swell by a third, with an extra million people using the tube every day. This, Venafi anticipates, will lead to an additional 17,000 lost or stolen phones, bringing the possible total to 67,000 during the two-week period.

Given that an estimated 40 percent of all mobile devices, or approximately 26,800, are smartphones, the risk of data loss and data theft during the Olympic Games is high. This means that a total of 214.4 terabytes—or the equivalent of 214.4 million books—will likely be lost or otherwise end up in the wrong hands during the Olympic Games.

These figures do not include the even-larger data volumes at risk from the loss or theft of other mobile devices, such as laptops and tablets.

The recent BYOD phenomenon means that more people are carrying more personally-owned devices at any given time than ever before. These powerful, network-enabled devices can access, process and store a great deal of data, much of it valuable and often-regulated business data.

Organizations with users who can access corporate information, systems and applications remotely from mobile devices should have sound policies and device management systems in place. To help reduce mobile-access risks, Venafi also recommends that enterprises leverage encryption and digital certificates—with sound certificate-management capabilities—to ensure proper authentication and data protection.