MobileActive.org

Anyone who has had a phone stolen knows the frustration of trying to rebuild your contact list, not to mention data on the phone that is unrecoverable. Worse, the data stored on your phone can be dangerous in the wrong hands. In addition to being able to impersonate you to your mobile contacts, consider the risk of an attacker who has access to some of all of the following:

• Your saved contacts - names, phone numbers, perhaps also email addresses and physical addresses
• Call logs - calls made and received
• Stored text messages
• A calendar with your appointments, or a task list
• Your mobile email
• Your web browser with stored passwords
• Photos, video and sound recordings stored on the phone and memory card
• Data stored by applications - notes, social networking contacts and posts

Three kinds of tools can lessen the pain of losing your mobile data, and limit your risk should your phone be lost or stolen.

• Backup and restore tools allow you to save a backup of contacts and other data stored on your phone
• Data deletion tools can be used to ‘clean’ a phone completely before disposing of it, giving it away or travelling to a location where you are worried it could be stolen or confiscated
• Remote wipe tools are set up so that if your phone is lost or stolen, you are able to clean it remotely, deleting sensitive data. Many remote wipe tools also allow you to track the phone provided it has not been turned off.