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Where Is Most of Your Data? Try Your Pocket

  |   Information Security, Insights   |   No comment

iStock_000015825084XSmallAny information security consultant will tell you that to protect your digital data you need to know what data you have. This is called a data inventory and it is a key part of corporate efforts to secure their technology environments. But individuals can, and should, do periodic data inventory assessments, too.

Surprisingly, personal data inventories often reveal that your greatest point of exposure is not on your computer at all, despite it having a 2 Gigabyte hard drive. The biggest hole in personal information security is often in your pocket.

Smart phones have a greater array of information about you and your daily activities than your computer will ever have. Consider that your smart phone may:

  • Contain phone numbers and email addresses for everyone you associate with, along with phone logs and emails showing when you last contacted them.
  • Have records of recently visited or favorite geographic spots bookmarked on a mapping application.
  • Store every text message (inbound and out) that you have not erased
  • Be integrated to a cloud storage platform that has many personal, and even confidential company files a finger flick away.
  • Provide one of the common two-factor authentication tools for many online elevated security websites.
  • Be used to receive a reset code when you lose your online banking password.
  • Link directly into all your social media outlets, allowing whoever has your phone to pose as you online.

Losing your smartphone is expensive. But the cost of data can be even more dramatic. Take a few basic steps to ensure you are treating the data on your phone with the respect it deserves:

  • Ensure you know how you can remotely wipe the phone if it is lost.
  • Require that the phone have a lock screen. This will give you a chance to remotely wipe it once you discover it missing.
  • Enable any features that allow you to track the phone with its built in GPS.
  • Backup the device so if it is lost, you don’t lose all those photos you have stored on it.

 

 

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