Although hackers and purveyors of computer viruses have not yet infiltrated the smartphone arena, smatphone users still have much to be concerned about should their smartphone fall into the wrong hands. Since people generally use their smartphones as a miniature PDA, filled with all their personal info, the biggest secuirty threat to smartphone users is identity theft, a serious concern by any measure.
To protect yourself from such a threat, there is one step you must consider performing, namely:
Activate the Master Device Password
Most smartphones have, usually in their Security Settings, a master device password that must be entered any time your device has sat idle for a set period of time before you can access any part of your smartphone. While it may seem annoying to have to enter in a password every time you want to get into your smartphone, it can save you from a heap of trouble should you lose your device.
Research in Motion (RIM) has now released a new software package for the BlackBerry for use in small and medium sized businesses. BlackBerry Professional Software, as it’s called, is primed to be a big hit, available for instant download by IT Managers with Administrator capabilities for email servers of companies using either Microsoft Exchange or IBM Lotus Domino.
BlackBerry Professional Software comes bundled with a huge number of features and functionalities, far too numerous to list here, but with some of the most exciting utilities and capabilities including:
selecting which company smartphones have browser access and restricting which sites can and cannot be viewed
limiting long-distance calling to only approved numbers
defining automated backup schedules
BlackBerry Professional Software has been put together so as to be simple to install and manage, with all sorts of step-by-step wizards at your disposal, as well as advanced security features (like end-to-end AES or triple DES encryption) and IT policies and commands (for imposing lockdown, wiping data, and defining and enforcing security protocols such as for using Bluetooth and voice calling).
