Mobile security – You never know you need it, until you need it

Earlier in the week I received a mobile phone to review. This isn’t unusual, but what I found on it was. There was a definite “pre-owned” feel to it.
No, it wasn’t scratched. It wasn’t damaged in any way. Instead it had stacks of data on it. Someone elses data.

This “someone else” is the Editor of a big print magazine. I can sympathise to some degree, because when you’re sending a phone back it’s easy to forget to clear the memory. However, the PR people usually spot this and clear it down.
In this case I’d managed to get the phone with all the data intact, and that’s when it hit me. This could happen to me very easily.
I carry around a phone and don’t secure it in any way. I’ve seen others setting up security systems – a coded lock-screen for example – but I’ve never bothered myself. Why? Why is this? Well, it’s mainly complacency. I, like others, don’t believe I’ll ever lose my phone. I take it everywhere, like my wallet, so losing it isn’t going to happen to me, is it?
Is it?
Sure, the phone I’ve got here is going to get passed around from person to person. It’s like starting a new job, getting the mobile phone that the previous guy had, and then finding a few pictures of his house on there. What did scare me though was the sheer volume of data and what I could do with it.
I’ve altered some of the more specific details here, but I had everything. Photos from home, from the office, pictures of people and streets. An email account was setup and I could read all about the new bathroom that was being installed. Perhaps more importantly, because this is GMail on Android, I had all the contact names, numbers, addresses and I could send mail too.
Pretty eye-opening stuff, and it’s not until you think about all the different networks you hook into on your phone. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.. the list goes on. Here I had access into Twitter and all the private messages…

Plus all the private LinkedIn messages. Think about it – all those job offers, your CV. The names, addresses and birthdays of your friends and family. But perhaps the worst of all – I could change all the passwords, because with full access to the email account and can easily confirm all the changes.
So, what should you do? Well, we recently reviewed Mobile Device Manager from 3CX and that had the ability to Remote Wipe Android phones, so I could use that – it would just be a matter of signing up, plus I could track the phone and hopefully get it back too if I wanted. However, most people don’t even look at the “Security” section in their phone. Open it up and you’ll find a whole heap of settings including a SIM card lock, SIM change alert and encryption. I’ll admit that I’m lazy, and don’t have a “screen lock” setup, but this is the easiest barrier to put up. It’s just like closing the windows when you leave the house, and newer versions of Android include “Face Unlock” to make it a little easier. Setting a pattern, PIN or password lock will mean that most thieves will instantly hit a brick wall, and won’t be able to get as far as your LinkedIn profile, your Facebook, Twitter, email and personal pictures.
Come on. How many people have been to the pub and left their phone on the table, only to have a friend login to your Facebook and send a humorous “update” to the world? A few seconds setting up some security, that’s all it takes. A lot of your life is on your smartphone, so lock it up and take care of it, just as you would with your home.

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3CX Mobile Device Manager Review

In recent years we’ve seen a shift in the way that mobile devices are used in the workplace. Previously you may have had a Blackberry or Microsoft Pocket PC dropped on your desk. Things were locked down, secure and managed. Now, with the advent of “Bring Your Own Device”, employees are bringing their own phones and hooking it into Exchange or the local WiFi to access company resources.
Whilst this is great in theory it opens up a can of security worms. Now there’s an estimated 90% of employees using their own technology at work. Without management, this can result in data breaches, so some sort of security needs to be added.
This is where Mobile Device Manager from 3CX comes in. It’s free, there’s no software to worry about and it’s really simple to get going. Put simply, it’s a portal which shows you where registered mobiles are, where they’ve been and what apps are running.
But that’s not all. You can deploy applications to Android phones or groups of Android phones, and you can see what’s installed too. If phones get misplaced you can remotely lock them or wipe corporate data and emails before it all gets in the wrong hands. You can received alerts and send messages to users too.
Getting started is easy, you just grab yourself a free account on their website.
From there it’s just a matter of getting the the app onto each phone you want to manage. It’s easy enough to do, you just search for “3CX”, but you can also take a snap of the QR code that pops up. Once the app is installed you simply enter the account name you provided during the sign-up process and you then authorise it through the web app. Done.
First up, perhaps one of the most useful items – tracking where your phones are. This obviously uses GPS and you’ll notice the GPS signal flashing away on your phone quite often. This can have a small affect on battery life. In the Global Settings there’s an option to alter the “Client Update Frequency” which sets how often to get data, so presumably by tweaking that down you can reduce the GPS activity somewhat.
Note how it’ll also show you the battery level and CPU activity..

I’ve clicked on one of my managed phones and can see the apps that are installed easily – note the buttons which hide internal apps and deploy apps remotely. You can also set a Policy just purely for the device you’re looking at, deploy an APK file or add a file from Google Play. Oh, and of course, you can remove apps that really shouldn’t be on a work phone..

Here’s the settings for the phone and the iPhone MDM options too..

The security aspect is all-important too, so it’s from here that you can block, lock and wipe a phone. Perfect if a device has just been left on a train with those all-important emails and documents…

It connects to Google Maps, so you can use Satellite or Terrain view with Location History. Switch to the Location History tab and you can see where the phone has been in the past – it’ll use network transmitters to get the location too. You can disable tracking and export the whole lot to a CSV file. Click each historical item to see it on the Google Map.

Mobiles can be sorted into groups, so you can message or manage blocks of users easily..

Then you can send them a notification message to let them know what jobs need doing for the day…

You can also send a location, so for example you could give a delivery driver the location of their drop-off or pick-up point easily, even send a URL…

There’s a mass of options within the “Global Settings” screen. Too many to mention here, but you can customize your experience as you see fit.

Still confused? Well, don’t be, we’ve put together a little video showing how easy it is to setup and get going.
Overall, we were more than impressed purely because it was so flippin’ easy to get going and start using it. Sign up and have a go. The security aspect should be of particular interest, especially with so many personal devices flooding into premises. Oh and sure, the GPS can be disabled if the user wants to, but as a way of tracking your fleet, managing your workforce and ensuring compliance it’s a fantastic system.
Link – Mobile Device Manager

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Adobe kills Flash on mobile devices

Although Adobe announced at the end of last year they were not supporting Flash on mobile devices going forward, today they are going a step further and have announced it will be removed from the Google Play Store in August.
Jelly Bean is the first version of Android that Adobe would not be supporting, but at the moment you can still download Flash separately from the Play store and have a go, but from August you won’t even be able to do that.
Flash has always been a great bonus for Android users, and especially Android tablet users, so this surely puts a bit of a dampener on the new Nexus 7, which will have the dubious honour of being the first Android tablet without flash.
Whilst the iPad’s and HTML 5 have helped to wean websites off Flash, there are still plenty of sites that won’t work well without out it. Lets hope developers really get they’re finger out, given how for lots of households, tablets will be their only internet devices.
Link – PC Pro

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Apple and Samsung get 99% of the total mobile phone profits

Looks like it's a grim time to be a mobile phone manufacturer if you are not Apple or Samsung. According to the latest report by Asymco, Apple and Samsung accounted for 99 percent of the total mobile phone profits, with HTC taking the remaining 1 percent.

Out of the 99 percent Apple took the majority of it with an astounding 73 percent, with Samsung being left with the remaining 26 percent despite being the world's largest mobile phone manufacturer right now. As mentioned before, HTC took 1 percent out of the total and everybody else, including RIM, Nokia, LG, Motorola and Sony Mobile reported a loss in the first quarter.

With the launch of the Galaxy S III and the HTC One series phones, these two are likely to expand their share of profits over the coming quarters. However, it is going to take quite a bit of effort to dethrone Apple from the number one position, which it has managed to maintain despite not having the greatest market share.
For a more detailed analysis, click on the source link below

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Source

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