The Car: The Place Where Most Electronic Devices Are Stolen From

Security firm ESET, in collaboration with Harris, has performed a study to determine how likely it is for mobile electronic device owners to become victims of theft.

According to the result of the study, 1 in 10 of the 1,700 adult respondents reported experiencing at least one device theft.

Interestingly, the place where it’s most likely that your laptop, tablet or smartphone will be stolen is the car (21%), followed by your home (18%), airports, buses and other means of public transportation (11.5%), cafes and restaurants (11.5%) and the office (7%).

People who own three devices appear to be the most concerned about their gadgets being stolen (48%).

“Losing a digital device is usually a huge pain for the device owner, but the numbers we see in our survey raise information security concerns that go beyond the owner of the device to impact people and organizations whose data may be compromised by the theft,” Stephen Cobb, ESET Security Evangelist, explained.

“A stolen device not only harbors data but also contains, in most cases, credentials with which to access other systems, which crooks may then seek to abuse. Think of your email accounts, social media accounts, bank and shopping accounts.”