Secure your mobile devices

Portable devices are designed to be easily transported and a lot of sensitive business information may be carried around outside the office, for example, sales information or customer data.

Although there are ways to physically protect your laptop, personal digital assistant (PDA), or other portable device, there is no guarantee that it won't be stolen or lost. While the theft itself is frustrating and inconvenient, the loss of information on the device could have serious long term consequences to your business.

What can you do?

  1. Set and maintain strong passwords—Password protocols are built into many mobile devices. Make sure you use them. Also ensure that passwords are not written down on the device, for example, don’t allow people to write passwords on stickers and attach them to the device.
  2. Encrypt files—Encryption is the conversion of data into a secret code for transmission over the internet. By encrypting files, you ensure that unauthorised people can't view data even if they can physically access it. Commercial products are available to encrypt information on your network. There may be a business case to purchase this software to protect sensitive information such as your intellectual property and pricing policies. You may also want to consider options for full disk encryption, which prevents a thief from even starting your laptop without a password.
  3. Protocols for loss of equipment—establish a set of actions to take if business equipment is lost or stolen, and communicate them to your staff. These could include:
    1. Maintaining a list of serial numbers of business equipment;
    2. Reporting the loss to police and insurance company as soon as possible;
    3. Changing all online passwords used on the stolen device; and
    4. Advising your bank and/or cancelling the card if a credit card or other information was recorded on the device.