How To Protect Your Mobile Data

How To Protect Your Mobile Data

Protecting mobile devices is nothing new to lawyers, you already realize the importance of protecting sensitive and confidential data. But there is always that possibility that something can go wrong. Your mobile device getting lost or stolen is certainly not the end of the world. There are numerous apps, programs and services that are designed to track and locate mobile devices, remotely lock and wipe mobile devices and back up data in case the device is never recovered or is hacked by an intruder. Here are some of the top resources to help lawyers protect their mobile devices from theft and data loss.

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Device tracking

The majority of phone carriers have implemented phone tracking to their service plans. If your phone is lost or stolen, you can simply login and track it. If this is not included with your plan, don't despair. There are many independent services and programs that allow you to track your device simply by logging in to the website or using the app from another mobile device. Just remember, your device must be on and transmitting as signal to be able to be tracked. 

Mobile Security features

You should protect your phone with the security features that it comes enabled with. Often, this includes features such as two-step verification, security challenge questions, encryption and more. There are some newer security methods such as eye-tracking and fingerprint scanning, but the actual security benefits of these features have yet to be validated as they can still be bypassed with a password.

Keep personal and private usage separate

Many employees have begun using multiple phones to keep their personal and business lives separate, especially as more IT departments are implementing monitoring software on mobile devices to ensure that security and company policies are being met. However, some of the newer smartphones such as the Samsung S4 have recently developed split environments to offer users more flexibility and privacy.

Touted as the ultimate business phone, the Samsung S4 is the perfect solution for BYOD implementations or for professionals that prefer to use mobile devices for their business activities. The superior Knox security feature allows for the phone to be separated into two separate partitions- one for business and one for personal use. This way, if your phone is being monitored by the IT guys, they can't see your personal texts, phone logs, photos or emails.

Remote lock and wipe

If your phone is lost or stolen, you must act fast. Once an attacker gains access to your phone, they may be able to gain access to many other accounts. There are numerous remote lock and wipe programs includingiCloud and the ultimate Mobile Defense security suite. 

Mobile cloud data backup

If your mobile device does get stolen, it turns into a bad situation that can get worse. If you don't have the remote lock and wipe feature with your service plan, or are unable to access the internet, you can be in trouble. An attacker can quickly use the device to gain access to the law firm cloud accounts where he can access various types of information, files and documents. A secure cloud data backup system such as cloudHQ will provide a safe, secure and complete backup of all of your important files and documents.

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• Stop Worrying About Mobile Device Security | ForeScout solutions for BYOD (laurence-autorino.com)
• Mobile Device Management: The New Moneymaker for MSPs (gfi.com)
• BYOD Policies Bring a Billion Devices to Businesses by 2018 (eweek.com)
• 95% Of Mobile Devices Have No Security Software Installed - Juniper (misco.co.uk)
• Maintaining Focus On Mobile And Data Management (cloudhq.net)
• Mobile security awareness - top of the list this Christmas (abc.net.au)

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