Traditionally laptop and mobile workers, have been at higher risk from data loss than in house office staff.The following data related risks have been highlighted as some of the most common affecting remote workers.

• Insufficient data backups taking place due to the laptops only being present on the corporate networks infrequently, this is especially true for sales reps and staff who’s jobs are permanently based out on the road.
• The risk of data loss due to hardware failure,as most of these remote workers are using laptops or net books to store their documentation and email,one spilled cup of coffee or dropped laptop can have disastrous consequences.
• Theft of the laptop and more importantly the data on the laptop, whilst hardware can be easily replaced its the critical information on the laptop that usually has a far greater monetary value than a cheap easily replaced box.
• Insufficient Anti Virus and security measures often mean that the remote laptop user is far more likely to have their machine damaged and more importantly the data destroyed by an number of Trojans or worms,often resulting in total data loss.

Help is however at hand with the proliferation of inexpensive automated online backup services now available,its simply a matter of loading a client onto the machine that you wish to protect and setting up your backup schedules and your done.

In the event of a disaster or theft, all you need to worry about is getting a replacement piece of hardware and you can simply restore your files and pick up off right where you left off.

Don’t say you haven’t been warned.We have seen it all, the coffee,red wine, auto snatch and grab, and laptops so riddled with viruses that the scanners won’t even run.