Could Your Mobile Device Land Your CEO In Court?

By Sean Glynn, Credant Technologies

The humble PC is now around 25 years old but, in many ways, the IT security industry — which has been with us for almost as long — has changed more in the last 2.5 years than the last 25. Today's portable devices, notably smartphones powered by the Windows Mobile, Symbian, Apple and Blackberry operating systems, are microcomputers in their own right. But their processing power capabilities are significantly behind the curve of their desktop cousins. Our best estimates here at Credant are that the modern smartphone in your pocket or purse probably has the processing power of a PC of about a decade ago. And therein lies the problem.

Encrypting data on the fly on most smartphones if done in the wrong way can take a lot of processing power, with the result that users get frustrated with seeing the hour-glass busy symbol under Windows Mobile, or similar busy icons under other operating systems and may just switch it off or ignore it. But what happens if you don't encrypt the data on your portable device such as your smartphone or your laptop? What can possibly go wrong? Quite a lot, when you consider the requirements of most industry specific compliance regulations, the growing number of state data security laws and statutes, as well as, the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 (Stimulus Act) that now mandates additional data breach notification requirements for certain types of companies.