Sloppy handheld habits

A third of professionals using mobile devices such as PDAs and smartphones are failing to use passwords or any other security protection, and even store their PIN numbers, passwords and other corporate information on the devices.

The findings, from Pointsec’s Annual Mobile Usage Survey, shows that corporate personnel now store significant amounts of corporate data on their mobile devices, including customer contacts, email details, passwords and bank account details, together with personal and private information such as friends’ details, and personal images, giving little or no consideration to security.

What’s surprising about the survey is people’s propensity to lose the very devices on which their lives depend so much. Last year, 16% of users had lost one, while this year the number has increased to 22%. Of those that lost their device, 81% had not encrypted their information and admitted that they were worried that the information could fall into the wrong hands and either cause embarrassment, or that they would lose "everything" as they hadn't backed-up their information.

RELATED TOPICS : Lost & stolen devices biggest risk, Endpoint encryption to go mainstream, Mobile email devices are a security risk, Lost PDA's pose a security risk

CATEGORIES : 1mobility, 1pda, 1encryption, 1endpoint, 1passwords, 1survey, 1users