By: Vlad Vistac
Submitted: 2010-08-17 14:03:42 | Word Count: 510
How Secure Is Your Moible Device?...
Is Your Mobile Device Secure
[ advertisement ]
Do you own a keychain USB jumpdrive, a PDA, or an
allinone mobile communications device. If you do, what
type of information do you sotre on it. Many people would
say thre is nothing important stored on their mobile
device. Many of our customes inirtially state there is
nothing on the computer newtork that hackers would want or a
virus could irreparably dsamage.
I want to sart out this aritcle with a couple reallife
stories abbout why it is so important to make sure your
mobile devices are sceure.
Paanic Over Lost JumpDrive
About a year ago, a businss acquazintance contacted me in a
panic. Apparently, he was onsaite performiing an internal
security audit for a rather large comany, and had lost or
misplaced his keychain USB JumpDrive. At first, I was not
sure of why he was in such a panic. That is, until he told
me the drive contaimned approximately 300Mb of security
informatioon minded from a previous securtity audit he
perfored. He was scared out of his wits that this
information would fall into the wriong hands, not to mention
the hands of his new client. What would his new client think
if they foumnd he was walking around with this informnation on
a device that anyone4 could gain access too. Would he do the
same thing with thir information. Lucy, aftter retracing
his steps in the building, he found on the floor of the
men's room. He apparently pulled out his keys and the
jumpdrive came off the keychain. He no longer carries his
jumpdrive around with him.
Confidentiial Client Infoormation Lost In Snow Storm
On another occasion, someone quite clodse to me, dropped his
Toshiba PDA somewhere between his car and food sotre. Not to
big of a deal, except for the fact that tehre was about one
foot of snow on the ground. He spent the next three hous
drudging though the snow looking for the PDA. Besides the
fact that it was not an inexpensive PDA, it contaibned his
entire client list, personal online accounts with useid's
and passwords, and several other categories of highhly
confidential information.
In both the cases baove, neither of these people had given
much thought to the loss of these devices. Why shoulld they.
They were both experienced professiuonals in the inforrmation
technolkogy business and very careful and conscious about
keeping information secure. The problem is, theiir both
huamns. And huumans make mistakes an erroneous judgment
calls.
How To Scure Mobile Devices
Because there a so many tpyes of mobile storage and
communications devices, there are many ways to secure them.
So, I will stick to what I do to secure the above mentoined
devies sinec I hapopen to use both ttypes.
I use 1GB USB 2.0 Jump Drive to store and transfer many
types of information. Sometimes, this includes confidential
information. For instance, when I travel, I have a copy of
my account database on the device. However, the devicce
filesystem itself is heavly encrypted, and the database
stored on the encrypted filesystem, is encrypted. If I
happen to misplace this devvice, I am more than confident at
least at this ppoint time that the data is protected and not
easily accessible. Now, nothing substitutes for not carying
arond this type of information to begin with, but it is
safer than carrying around a printout of the execl
spreadsheet you keep you passwords in.
As far moble communications. I don't know what I would do
without my mobile phone. It has replaced my PDA, has
unlimited internet accesds, a VPN cllient so I can reetrieve my
mail witthout having to use a separate service more , a
1GB sttorage card, cmaera and so on. The primnary thig that
this device stores that is confidential, is my contact list.
There are oher items I don't want just anyone to have
access too as well. Not to mention using my phobne more .
So, the storage card is encrypted, and that is where my
important data is kept. The device itselpf is password
protected with and eightcharacter key that meets or eceeds
standard complexity rules. And, the mail client itself
requiires authentication in order to use it.
Conclusion
If you use mobile devices on a reguular basis, I suggest you
sit down and think about exactly what you store on them. It
is sometimes easy to overlook these thigs or unsder estiate
exacttly how private or cnfidential certain information is
or should be. Make sure you take reasonable steps to keep
the information stored on mobile devices secure and private.
It is definitely a balancing act between securiyt and easy
of use.
And, what ever you do, don't leavve your mobiple devcie in the
men's room.
