Data Leaks For Dummies®

Chapter 10. Mobile Phones and PDAs

In This Chapter

• Protecting your corporate portal

• Meeting the management challenges mobile devices create

• Controling functionality on mobile devices

• Using wipe and kill to make lost data disappear

• Preventing bluesnarfing and other Bluetooth dangers

The way we do business and work today has radically changed the way we need to approach IT security. Millions of us now do at least part of our jobs from home offices or other remote locations. It's estimated that around one in five adult workers telecommute for normal business activities. This number translates into an increasing amount of responsibility for IT managers who must keep track of all those mobile workers, their hardware, access control, and policy management. Given that mobile working has a tendency to amplify existing organizational weaknesses, IT has a huge job simply to manage the technology.

When companies extend their business IT operations to mobile employees, their risks are increased. Valuable software, data and devices are taken out of the protected perimeter of the office, and placed in the pockets, pouches, and briefcases of users.

Warning

Five percent of all business laptops are lost every year — and you are 22 times likelier to lose a phone or PDA than you are a laptop. It wasn't as much of a problem before PDAs and smart mobile phones started sprouting features; now, in essence, they offer the same functionality as a laptop. They can hold a lot more stuff that you don't want to lose. ...