Securing Mobile Device Data
Image courtesy of adamr at freedigitalphotos.net.
Between smartphones, laptops, USB drives and tablets, your data and personal information is often spread across multiple devices. This could put your privacy and company data at high risk.
While mobile devices can store large amounts of data, they are often unprotected. They are also easy to lose or steal.
According to CSOonline, mobile devices are just as much at risk as a PC and mobile operating systems like iOS and Android are targets. They recommend having anti-malware software installed and frequently updated on any device that is used to access the internet, or used for work.
Mark Dryer, CEO of MDL Technologies, reminds mobile users that it is essential to use passwords for laptops and mobile storage devices that contain sensitive data in order to prevent them from being accessed in the event that they are lost or stolen. Dryer also highly suggests that any and all emails containing sensitive data be encrypted.
A frequent mistake made by users is having the same password across all accounts, if a hacker cracks one account they now can access them all. Each account should have their own. The New York Times recommends using a password manager like Password Safe or LastPass to create stronger passwords. These sites make a password for each website you need and store them in a database that is then protected by a master password.
