Privacy Nightmare of Laptop Robberies

Laptop thieves descend upon wireless cafes / Grab-and-run robbers find pricey computers easy to resell. This San Francisco Chronicle article looks at a laptop robbery at knife point from a wi-fi hot spot in a coffee shop. Thieves are targeting expensive laptops for thefts which can turn violent if computer owners resist.

The victim in this case was stabbed and spent six days in a hospital. He was a finance manager - which means he could potentially have valuable personal financial information on clients or access via stored passwords or saved cookie-based logins to sensitive financial information through web site extra-nets.

We all hope that thieves are not becoming sophisticated enough to track and find those with sensitive data on their laptop hard drives, then follow them to steal that valuable information, and that they simply want a pricey laptop to sell easily on the street. The data on some laptops could be extremely valuable in providing access to sensitive financial information.

But you've got to wonder when and if things will progress to that level of sophistication considering the value to some criminals of vast troves of potential identity theft victims and/or access to financial network logins stored on laptop hard drives carried by executives from banks, brokerages and other financial institutions.

Save To Del.icio.us    Digg This!