I’m cynical enough to believe that if a bad guy really wants to get information on you they will- so there’s no sense worrying about it. But I recently read a couple of articles on smartphone and wifi security that offer some easy and practical ways to help avoid hacking and identity theft- or at least tell you how to take the “Steal Me!!!!” sign off your back.
First of all, it’s important to realize that most people’s smart phones are windows into their personal and financial lives. Your contacts are there, where you’ve been is there, any accounts that you have set to automatically log in to are there- if you do online banking on your phone, THAT information is there.
Symantec did an experiment and “lost” 50 smart phones with simulated corporate and personal data on them. They also were able to monitor the activity on the phones once they were “found”.
Results:
Only half of the people made any attempt to return the phone and even the people who did try to return them also tried to access the phone 96% of the time. This may have started out as an attempt to find the owner, but:
Two practical recommendations came out of the experiment:
Another article talks about security on a wifi network- which can be easily broken with a device as cheap as $89.99- so anyone walking around a mall or trade show can hack your device.