Our Blog, September, 2008

Smartphones security risk is growing

According to Gartner analyst John Girard , speaking at the Garther IT Security Summit in London today , wireless identity theft and phishing attempts targeting mobile devices will become more and more prevalent next year.

Now that businesses can actually conduct business on smartphones they are getting more open to security lapses whihc have been prevalent on pcs for years.

Girard listed 9 ways of increasing security on your smartphone.

1. Educate users on the importance of security and ways to avoid the loss of their mobile devices and laptops.

2. Be sure password protection is set to “on” for all mobile devices. Most come with some built-in password protection, and higher levels of access security can be added through third-party applications.

3. Install a mobile management system that enforces reasonable data security policies on the widest possible range of mobile, wireless devices.

4. Determine which files can and cannot be downloaded and by which users, and enforce these rules through any means available, including port locking, protecting the company’s most sensitive and regulated data from exposure.

5. Encrypt either individual files or the entire contents of the mobile device, depending on the organization’s security needs, both for transmission and storage of sensitive information on mobile devices.

6. Enforce connection/VPN security standards for all transmissions to mobile devices to ensure transmission security.

7. Require active firewall protection and virus protection on all mobile devices and update the firewall and virus protection regularly through downloads from a central server.

8. Enable device lockdown and “kill” functions so that, for instance, if a device does not connect to the corporate network for 24 or 48 hours, or if it does attempt to connect after being reported missing, it automatically wipes the data in its memory clean.

9. Log device use to access any data defined as sensitive in regulations or otherwise considered sensitive by the organization (for instance, corporate financials, research results and customer data).

Mobile Superhero Review on Pinstack.com

We have got some great feedback from Pinstack.com , one of the largest Blackberry enthusiasts forums. Here is the post with the review at the bottom. Lots of other positives about the service out there – so download it today and let us know what you think.

New Features for Mobile Superhero

Things have been busy in Yougetitback.com HQ . We have just added some cool new features , we have a free 7 day trial so please do test drive and all feedback is appreciated.

The new features include:

We map the location of your lost / stolen phone regardless of whether it is a GPS or a non-GPS phone.
We also allow users to define the level of protection they would like – you can set your phone to lock if it roams, if it calls countries on your black list, calls outside your phone book or if it is idle.
One of the most popular new features is our pin lock feature that allows you to lock your phone from another mobile phone so when you realise your phone with all those files and emails are exposed to all and sundry you can grab the nearest phone and text your PIN to the phone and the phone is locked.

The bad guys usually swap sim cards immediately after they take your phone but all the above features still work and we can grab their sim card details .

We are only live for a few days and the feedback has been great, any comments appreciated.

Airport Friendly Laptop Bags

One of the major areas in US airports where laptops were lost was at the security check. By taking the laptop out of the laptop bag people are leaving their laptop behind. Over 12000 laptops are lost every week at USA airports and less than 35% are recovered.

The US authorities are now allowing travellers to leave the laptop in certain types of bags. The nice guys over at computerworld have listed 8 bag that fit in these categories.

There are 3 types of bags that are checkpoint friendly.

1. Butterfly-style to open flat: one side the laptop, the other side storage
2. Double- or triple-compartment bags that unfold (like a garment bag)
3. Notebook sleeves (many existing on the market)

900 Laptops go missing in Heathrow weekly

Approximately 22.5 million business travellers pass through London Heathrow’s terminals every year, and according to a recent survey by the Ponemon Institute, it is the worst offender for lost and stolen laptops with up to 900 devices going missing per week.

Despite most of these laptops having security precautions such as passwords and encryption in place, there is still a lot of fear that exists as to how the data can be used and what the consequences might be.

Smartphone Sales in US up 78.7%

According to Gartner in the second quarter of 2008 North American Smartphone market increased by 78.7 per cent year over year.

RIM’s global increase in sales has increased by 127% versus 8% for Nokia.

This is a very strong performance from RIM and with their new products coming down the pipeline they should have very strong next quarter.

iPhone idiot

A guy here is complaining bitterly that he didnt mean to buy the “Im Rich” app from the Iphone app store. This app flashed I’m rich- thats it.

Apple pulled the app pretty early on but this “developer” made a few quick bucks from this guy.

iPhone developer shares sales figures

The iPhone app store has been a major success, all indications is that it will be worth $500 m to Apple this year.
Taptaptap a developer has decided to share their sales figures – fascinating reading.

Free Laptop Alarm

Laptop Alarm is a free software which comes with an anti-theft alarm that rings out of your laptop speaker, when someone tries to do any of the following below :

1. Unplug the external mouse to your laptop
2. Removes the charging AC power cord
3. Logs off the laptop
4. Attempts to shutdown your notebook.