Can Competitors Get Your Customer List From Your Salesperson's Smartphone? 4 quick tips to stop this...

June 21st, 2011 by admin

By Dan Baldwin, Editor So you've firewalled your business's most valuable content like your customer lists, sales figures, and the like from attacks over the Internet, but can your competitors still access the information the same way your salespeople do - using their smartphone? If you said, "No way - I've put mobile security policies in place to protect my data from mobile theft!" you may want to take a look at a new study by the online security provider McAfee and Carnegie Mellon University CyLab that suggests that two-thirds of employees aren't aware of their employers' mobile security policies. The report also suggests:

1. Approximately 1,500 companies surveyed report that their employees don't understand how the permissions and other access settings on their mobile devices work,
2. About 63% of work-related mobile devices are also used by employees for personal activities, and
3. Where companies do not provide mobile devices, many employees tend to use their personal smartphones and other mobile devices to handle work-related tasks.

  Four Quick Ways to Protect Your Business Data from Unauthorized Mobile Access...

1. Test for the Threat - During your next all-company meeting, when your best salesperson (the one most likely to get hired by your competitors) gets up to refill his or her coffee, grab their cell phone and see how long it takes you to download a customer list to the phone's removable SD card or email the list to another as an attachment.
2. Test for Security Policy Knowledge - On a quarterly basis test your smart phone using employees on their knowledge of your mobile security policy. Give a written test and have them show your security officer that they actually know how to implement the security policy on their phone.
3. Read Recent Mobile Security Reports - If you're the person at your firm who's supposed to know the most about mobile security then you'll likely keep your job longer if you've read up on recent mobile security reports that have been quoted in the media (the ones your boss is most likely to ask you about).  The best way to do this is set a Google news alert for mobile security news stories which generally quote recent report.Here's a few recent ones: CyLab/McAfee Report, Trusteer Mobile Phishing & TopTen's Mobile Security Software Review.
4. Get a Mobile Security Review - Professional telecom agents make it their business to help you understand your risks of loss to mobile security threats and then apply cost-effective preventative measures. Please contact us for a complimentary evaluation of the mobile security risks your business faces today.

  Other Useful Links

• Trellia - Their Mobile Data Security Policy Module is recommended by Moe Arnaiz the founder of eMobus which is distributed through Wholesale Carrier Services or WCS
• Contentious.com - The blog for Amy Gahran, the communication technology writer who wrote a recent CNN piece on mobile security

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Tags: carrier contract, carriers, cnn, contentious, cylab, eMobus, fire wall, internet attack, mobile device, mobile phishing, mobile security policy, mobile security, mobile threat, permissions, protect my data, security provider, smart phone, telecom agent, test for the threat, wcs

Posted in: Mobile Phones & Wireless Data