Your wallet is no longer the only item worth protecting with all sorts of personal and financial data on your smartphone readily available to thieves. Guess what I did with my personal phone after reading this article…
“…Symantec organized a multi-city clandestine project to see what happens when digital devices go missing…A total of 50 smartphones were distributed (purposefully lost) in 5 cities in restaurants, elevators, convenience stores and student unions. The devices were loaded with a buffet of juicy, fake data…Symantec tracked where the devices were taken once found, and what type of information was accessed by the “finders.”
“Many smartphone owners don’t take even simple steps, like requiring a PIN to unlock a phone…
“About 90% of all finders rifled through the phone’s apps and files, including ones that seemed to contain highly sensitive information.”
“80% looked at corporate data on the phone. About half took the bait to peek at the salary information and peruse the corporate email account. 40% couldn’t resist looking at the banking information. 57% looked at a password file…”
Source: BusinessWeek – Data Security: Most Finders of Smartphones Are Snoops
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- What Happens If You Lose Your Smartphone? [VIDEO] (mashable.com)
Live & Learn 
I’ve been thinking of getting one. However, I lose things a lot, and that’s what’s stopping me. As a matter of fact, I even lose posts. I would have to think of a way to make sure I knew where this was at all times!
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Chain it to your pocket like the busdrivers used to do with their wallets!
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Thank God I have never lost a phone. My greatest problem is drowning them; in the toilet, in the ocean, in the puddles on the street.
Great information and a Word to the Wise.
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Funny. I’ve never had the drowning problem. Dropsie’s yes. Drowning no. DK
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That is scary, but I believe the stats. I found a phone once, it was locked out, so I could not find the owner. I took it back to the nearest Telus store and asked them to see if they could find the owner. I am sure they have their ways. I once had a computer taken in to a repair store. They asked for a certain password, and I declined to give it to them,as they did not need to get into that section of the ‘brain’. When I picked it up, the tech had a piece of paper in his hand, with that password written on it. So it just goes to show you, it does not matter how secure you may think things are, they aren’t.
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Liz, your experience is even more frightening than the article. 🙂
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I’m probably one of the few last beeings in north america not having a cell phone, dumb..:) or smart phone…so I guess in the meantime I’m safe, but these are scary stories, seems there’s always a way to get through datas, either phones, internet database, computers, banking cards etc…
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Good for you! By the time you get around to it, we might all be wearing a chip rather than carrying a phone.
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Yes, lock up the smartphone, everyone! I used to constantly remind all customers of this when I was a techie geek for so many years! You wouldn’t leave your laptop with financial and a lot of personal info on it un-passworded, so don’t do that with your smartphone!
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