The results from a recent study by the Ponemon Institute show that the majority of businesses don’t manage the protection of these devices very well. One example: On August 7, financial services firm Merrill Lynch reported the theft of a laptop computer from its New Jersey corporate office — a laptop containing sensitive personal and financial information, including Social Security numbers, for 33,000 of its employees. Such breaches of confidential information have become routine news for one simple reason: even companies with large budgets to guard the security of their networks often fail to protect data on devices that are disconnected from the network. According to a Ponemon study, 73 percent of corporations surveyed experienced the loss or theft of a data-bearing asset in the last 24 months, yet those same organizations report limited efforts to manage this vulnerability.