
Mobile Device Security Considerations
Mitigating the mobile security risk is critical to protecting yourself, your business – secure your mobile phone, and protect your data
Just about everyone carries a mobile device – most have not been secured and are a huge threat to a company and it’s data
A mobile device connects to many networks (sometimes without the owner knowing) from home, to office to “free wi-fi” – ideal methods of attack; the device will often have logon details for various networks stored on the device itself
A lost un-encrypted device can be “broken” in minutes; if the device had access to business or private networks – you may just have breached your own security – and depending on what information was held, you may become responsible for a major security breach at the company
A lost encrypted device – small problem that you have to replace the hardware and data – but it was encrypted which made the data useless to the thief
All devices used for business must have a “wipe” function
All devices used for business should erase their data automatically after a set number of failed password attempts
Only download apps from the official App Store and Google Play. Third- party stores are fraught with malware. Stick to the official stores to protect yourself from malicious apps
Use different passwords for sites and apps. If you use the same passwords for banking, social media, email, etc., then a hacker only needs to figure out one password to gain access to your identify
Update your operating system and apps when new versions are available. Operating system updates typically include patches to known security vulnerabilities. Attackers can exploit these vulnerabilities if you do not upgrade your OS.