Wireless Security - Mobile Security: One Size Does Not Fit All

Mark Long has writen an interesting feature over at Wireless Newsfactor about the problems of security.

At present wireless devices are limited on there bandwidth unless they use the battery draining WiFi. Thus the security needed to protect data is limited to password protect, and lets face it thats not great as the number of passwords anyone has is limited to their ability to remember them.

You cannot use a VPN as that congests the already limited bandwidth faster than a month of Supersizing at McDonalds!

How ever as we become more mobile we need to become more security aware, the same thing happens with money when we leave our house. What is needed is not more smart devices just smart users. I remember a conversation a few years ago with a headhunter who was not overly concerned about the fact that he had left his Palm in the back of a taxi on the way over to my office. It was only after I asked if any of the documents relating to the assignment he was conducting for me were on the device that he became concerned and even then he said they were of little use to onthers. Needless to say he and I have not done business since.

When I first started using mobiles thay had a pin number, that was needed to un-lock the handset so that you could make calls. As more people got mobiles in an effort to make it easier for users we no longer see pin numbers. Hence when a phone is lost the lucky finder can read all you messages and copy your numbers, but the network can disable the sim so that no calls are made from it!

What is the best way forward for security? Get smarter users with dummer devices!