The Ohio State Government has been faced with increased scrutiny after two data breaches in recent weeks, and subsequent reports of loose laptop security. Now, steps are being taken to protect laptops with Absolute Software’s Computrace.

On June 10, the theft of a peripheral device put 64,467 employees and many other citizens at risk for identity theft. A later announcement indicated that a laptop reported missing on May 30 (reported on June 15) put another 439 people at risk for identity theft. Further investigations found that there have been 11 reports of missing or stolen laptops in 2007, and 26 in 2006 - placing even more citizen’s at risk for identity theft.

The state of Ohio auditor’s office announced yesterday that it will be installing Absolute Software’s Computrace to protect the sensitive information contained on State laptops.

“Those laptops are purchased with taxpayer dollars so we want to get that thousand dollar laptop back.” says Susan Raber of the Ohio auditor’s office.

“We’re responsible for the personal information we receive so we want to do everything possible to protect that personal information.” Raber says.

Computrace will allow the auditor’s office to remotely shut down any lost computer, and to track it down. The Computrace suite of software products provides a robust, multi-layered security solution to enable organizations to address issues of regulatory compliance, data protection, computer theft recovery and asset tracking.

Read more about multi-layered laptop security by Computrace here.

Via wsyx Tags: computrace, ohio, ohio state, ohio government, laptop theft, laptop security, identity theft, id theft, absolute, absolute software