What sort of personal information is there on your mobile phones? Could they pose a threat if you lose, lend or dispose them?

June’s Security Awareness newsletter brought this to Omega ATC’s attention and we wish to share it with our readers.

What types of personal information do you have stored on your little devices called cell phones and smart phones?  Below is a list of 11 bullets that are sure to put you at risk and expose your personal and/or company information if the information found its way to a hacker.

• Where you live, work and places you frequently visit
• The contact details for everyone in your address book, including family, friends and coworkers
• Call history, including inbound, outbound and missed calls
• Text and voice messages
• Chat sessions within applications like games and social media
• Location history based on GPS coordinates or cell tower history
• Web browsing history, cookies and cached pages
• Personal photos, videos, audio recordings and email
• Stored passwords and access to personal accounts, such as your online bank or email
• Access to photos, files or information stored in the Cloud
• Any health-related information, including your heart rate, blood pressure or diet

A hacker’s dream is to get access to at least 1 or 2 of the above to begin with.  Their job then gets easier.  So, before disposing your phones, backup any valuable data, then wipe clean, and do a ‘factory reset’.  This will ensure that the phone is in the state that you first purchased it.  It is recommended as the simplest and most secure way of clearing your personal data.