On August 30th, security software company Trust Digital released the results of a sampling of data found on personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smart phones sold on eBay. By simply purchasing 10 mobile devices on eBay, Trust Digital retrieved nearly 27,000 pages of sensitive data. The users of these devices included the corporate counsel of a multibillion-dollar technology company that serves the legal market, a former employee of a publicly traded security software company, and an employee of a Web services company. The sensitive data was gleaned from the flash memory of the gadgets, because the users failed to "hard" wipe their devices, according to Trust Digital. The company advised mobile device users to enable the password function on their smart phone or PDAs and inquire about data security from their cellular carrier. Palm Treo 650s and BlackBerry handhelds from Research In Motion have a built-in hard wipe function. Commercial hard-wipe products are available to other mobile device users. Further information may be found at http://www.trustdigital.com/news/press/2006_0830.asp
From Bytes in Brief
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