Polls say smartphones used to steal company info

[W1nTry]

All ur blackberries r belong to the security station, right outside our office thank you very much :p

Handsets help steal corporate secrets

What's that file on your phone, sonny?

By Tony Dennis: Sunday 10 September 2006, 19:30
A SURVEY of British directors, carried out by YouGov, has discovered that 29 per cent of them are prepared to steal corporate data when they change employers. But the hidden danger is from the mobile phone.

The chief devices fingered for enabling such data to be stolen are primarily memory sticks (obviously) and also digital music players – like the Apple iPOD.

But what the experts appear to have forgotten is that a standard feature of any Nokia Series 60 3rd edition handset is its ability to appear to be a memory stick – intended as a means to facilitate transfer of music files to the phone.

That very same feature, however, could easily be used to copy across valuable data files – such as a company's list of customers.

It would be relatively easy to prevent employees bringing memory sticks and music players into sensitive areas of a business or organisation. But banning all smartphones? That's counter-productive.

The INQ was made to hand in its cameraphone on a recent visit to AMD's fabs in Dresden. But just how feasible would a blanket ban of all smartphones be?

How would executives pick up their emails remotely if the likes of smartphones and Blackberries were banned totally?

The actual YouGov survey was sponsored by business software specialist, Hummingbird. Tony Heywood, European senior vp with Hummingbird told The Business that companies should "allow image-only access to files.

Alternatively a document audit trail could show exactly who had accessed a document and when." How would that work with mobile phones? Surely the ability to sync a handset's addressbook with the company's client list is a bonus?

If you block that facility, how would you ensure that your travelling execs and salesforce have the right telephone numbers stored in their mobile phones?

The YouGov also showed that women are more honest. 37 per cent of them claimed they would never steal data from their employers compared to just 25 per cent of the men asked the same question.

More on this story at The Business µ