The PDA Usage survey has found that PDA owners commonly download
the entire contents of their personal and business lives onto their
PDAs - with many leaving the information unencrypted and without
password protection.
PIN numbers, passwords, customer details, bank accounts, credit
card & social security details are just some of the highly
confidential and personal pieces of information people are storing
unprotected on their PDAs.
One in four users are not bothering to protect their PDA with a
password, even though over a third are using it as a business tool
to store confidential corporate information and to access their
corporate networks.
Pointsec Mobile Technologies and Infosecurity Europe
commissioned the survey into PDA usage to find out the top 10 most
common functions of the PDA and how well users are protecting the
information they store on them.
The survey was conducted among 332 IT and sales personnel of
which 43% are working for corporate organisations employing 1,000
or more staff.
Other findings of the survey show that:
- 25% of those who store their own passwords and PIN numbers on
their PDA do not bother to use a password to restrict access to
their own PDA.
- Of the people who store their bank account details on their
PDA, 65% do not bother to encrypt this information, with just under
a quarter not password protecting this information.
- 23% of PDAs are company owned, with 2 out of 3 being supplied
without any formal PDA policy or guidelines on the importance of
password protection and encryption.
- 36% use their PDA to download corporate information with 7 out
of 10 leaving it unencrypted.
Magnus Ahlberg, Managing Director of Pointsec Mobile
Technologies, said:
"The survey shows that people are using
their PDAs as portable mini-filing cabinets, storing every essence
of their personal and business lives on them, and yet oblivious to
the fact that without password protection anyone can access this
information.
"As organisations go mobile they need to
encrypt their information, which is like having walls to your
office. It takes a thief merely seconds to hotsync information from
a PDA using a laptop or PC if it is unencrypted and not password
protected. Therefore, it is imperative to secure all confidential
information held on PDAs."
The survey found that the top 10 functions people use their PDAs
for are:
1. To store personal names and addresses
96%
2. As a business diary 89%
3. As a personal diary 86%
4. For entertainment such as games, music etc. 49%
5. To store passwords/PIN numbers 46%
6. To receive e-mails 40%
7. To create documents/spreadsheets 37%
8. To store corporate information 36%
9. To store bank accounts 29%
10. Travel updates 29%
The survey highlighted the fact that users clearly perceive the
information held on their PDAs as highly valuable. Of the 6% who
have lost them in the past, 32% still continue to use them without
a password.
