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How to Keep Mobile Data Safe

Seven tips for securing your mobile data.

By Craig Bumpus

June 23, 2006 — CSO —

Let’s be honest: Is it really the fault of problems with a virus protection program, or an insecure hot spot, if notebook users lose data? A recent Gartner study showed that 86 percent of all security events in wireless networks are caused by the mobile devices—and not by insecure data transfer. I work in the mobile security industry, and would like to give you some simple measures for securing your notebook.

Tip 1: Demand more discipline from users when on the move

The only protection against being careless is more care and discipline—but that is difficult when you are under time pressure. Airline passengers lost more than 5,000 mobile devices at airports in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, according to a survey conducted by Utimaco Safeware among the lost-and-found offices at the 10 largest airports in the region. Particularly at airports with a large number of short-distance routes that are primarily used by business travelers, several dozen mobile devices are turned in daily—on heavily traveled days, as many as a hundred. It sounds obvious but bears repeating: If you travel with a notebook, you should always make sure that you really have the notebook case, including all its contents, over your shoulder before you leave the plane, taxi or train.

Tip 2: Make passwords more difficult to crack

If the worst happens, and your computer is stolen or lost, there is still hope that your personal data is not all accessible, if the password is difficult enough to crack. A mixture of characters, numbers and letters is considered the most secure—but only if passwords and keys are not stored on the hard disk. For this reason, it is better if the computer prompts for a password before booting. Electronic security solutions enable this. This gives an unauthorized user no chance to somehow get access to the operating system or saved data in any way.

Tip 3: Use hardware to supplement password protection

Analysts at the Meta Group have confirmed what IT managers already know: Passwords alone do not provide optimum protection for data. The alternatives have been available, and in use, for years. Special smartcards or tokens (which look just like a USB stick) store key information that is used in combination with a user password to unlock the computer. Only someone who has the token and knows the password can access the system and the data saved on it. Alternatively, the user’s biometric data can be stored on a smartcard. For authentication, the user’s fingerprint is checked directly on the card, instead of the password.