News

Probably just as popular a topic as the dreaded declining sales of PDAs, is the increased attention surrounding securing PDAs and smartphones in the workplace. With more attention given to mobile tasks like email and accessibility to company resources, PDAs are both powerful to accomplish, yet sometimes not secure enough to prevent, access to confidential/private company resources. A magazine, called InSecure Magazine, tackles the issues of IT and corporate security. In their latest issue, there's a detailed section devoted to PDAs as threats to corporate security.

What is most interesting about this article is the non-passive nature of PDAs that are approached. Instead of just highlighting that PDAs can be a security risk, InSecure talks about just how a person with intent and a PDA can compromise the data network from the inside.

Another good point covered early on in this article (and highlighted earlier this year in several articles about security on Symbian platforms), is the idea that a self executing file, or something as simple as a JavaScript, can be used to compromise a network connected PDA. This article talks primarily about Windows Mobile security, though Palm OS, RIM, or Symbian devices are just as vulnerable.

My favorite part of the article is the way that it is very systematic in showing the theory and the application of making a networked PDA vulnerable. InSecure even goes as far to explain how they used an older model iPaq to get behind a firewall to control a network.

Security is a very real issue in these days and times. And with the proliferation of wireless devices in the workplace, it is only that much more important that IT directors, as well as casual users, understand the limitations of wireless devices to be 100% secure. InSecure makes a great argument here that securing your mobile devices is no day in the park, but its one less hole to plug in the dam called mobile security.