Security Concerns Of Recycled Cell-Phones
Judging from the news it seems that many people do not take care of the sensitive content on their phone. This is true even when people recycle their phone. With smart phones rising in popularity, this poses a security headache for companies. Lost/stolen/sold phones can have proprietary company information which is often not encrypted. But what about phones which people sell to others, say on eBay? Surprisingly, the data on many of the phones has not been erased properly. Any data left on the phone can be used by hackers and criminals. Many times this seems to be a problem of not knowing how to get rid of the information. Recently Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in US released new guidelines for annihilating all data on mobile devices. Here’s a site which provides instructions for erasing data. Recycle with care!
In this related article, Businessweek reports:
The sales director of a large Japanese company thought he was doing a good deed when he donated his BlackBerry for recycling. But later a group of British and Australian researchers discovered the device and found it still contained sensitive data, including bank account numbers, a business plan for his organization, and the identity of his main customers.
Indeed, a September 2008 survey of 160 mobiles by the researchers—a team from British Telecom, Wales’ University of Glamorgan, and Australia’s Edith Cowan University—found that one in five mobile communications devices still held sensitive information. BlackBerrys contained the most, with 43% of those examined harboring data that could be considered a threat to the individual or the organization.
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