According to Mobile Usage Survey 2005, a third of professionals using portable devices such as PDAs and smartphones doesn't protect its mobile data with passwords or any other security protection. However three out of ten store their Pins, passwords and other corporate information on the devices.
The findings come from the Mobile Usage Survey 2005, conducted by SC Magazine. Almost 80% of users do not encrypt the information on their PDA or smartphone even though sensitive personal and valuable corporate information is being stored on the devices.
Some 81% use PDAs and smartphones to store business names and addresses, 45% to receive and view emails, and 27%to store corporate information. Nearly two-thirds also use the devices as a business diary, and 14% store sensitive information about their customers.
Loss and theft of mobile devices is also increasing. Last year just 16% had lost a PDA or smartphone, but the figure has increased to 22% this year. Of those who had lost their device, 81% had not encrypted the information. Sometimes loss is not unintentional; one interviewee lost his smartphone by “throwing the bloody thing out the window". Most devices are lost in transit, either in the back of a taxi, in an airport or on a train. Nightclubs and restaurants are the next most common places.
When people lose their mobile device only 40% inform the police. The rest do not believe there is anything the police can do.
“Loss and theft of PDAs and smartphones is an integrated part of more complex problem — mobile devices usage in corporative environment. If portative device contains clients' private data or company's sensitive information, then it's a problem of employer rather than employee. That's why information security policy always has parts dedicated to mobile devices usage (laptops, PDAs, iPods and etc.). This chapter or standalone document regulates protection of sensitive data with encryption. Otherwise information security policy forbids coping confidential records into portable storages or devices. Thus enterprises which deals with security problems adequately usually don't have any problems with mobile devices", — commented Denis Zenkin, the Marketing Director of InfoWatch company.
Source: vnunet.com
