When it comes to publicly disclosed breaches, chances are the root cause was a stolen system, not a hack.

That's right. If you want to protect your customers from identity theft, chain down your servers and clench those notebooks, according to Microsoft's most recent Security Intelligence Report, which was released today. Microsoft's SIR report is released twice a year. Today's report covers the second half of 2007.

The report states that a whopping 57% of all publicly disclosed breaches are caused by lost or stolen systems. At least for the second half of 2007. Only 13% were caused by active hacking, such as the Hannaford or TJ Maxx fiascos.

And if you're worried about viruses or worms, you should be focusing on Trojan avoidance -- the number of Trojan downloader's detected rose an astonishing 300%. That means it's more important than ever to look before you click on that URL. The most likely way this type of spyware is transferred is through drive-by downloads.

The full report is available from Microsoft.