UK Mobile Phone Users Highly Vulnerable To ID Theft


18 March, 2009, by Desire Athow

A survey conducted by end point security company Credant Technologies found that an overwhelming majority of UK mobile phone users do not apply even basic mobile phone security procedures.

The research carried out at the main London railway stations polled 600 commuters and revealed that four out of five users had information on their phones that could allow third parties to easily steal their identities.

For a start, 16 percent - that's one in every six - of those surveyed said that they had their bank account details on their mobile phones with nearly a quarter of the respondents saying they saved their PIN and passwords.

One in every ten probed saved their credit card information on their handsets. Only 60 percent of those questioned protected their mobile phones with a password to prevent others from accessing data on their mobile phones.

Unsurprisingly, 99 percent used their mobile phones for business and personal use although more than a quarter of cases, employees have been specifically told by their employers to refrain from doing so.

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Using figures obtained from the survey, Credant Technologies reckons that at least 4.2 million phone users are at risk of ID theft.


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Continued on next page Tags: Data Management, Information Life Cycle, Information management, Information/Data handling, Mobiles, information security
Desire Athow
Posted by
Desire Athow
on 18 March, 2009

Désiré Athow is the Editor of ITProPortal.com and has been reporting on technology and telecommunication since 1999. You can follow him on Twitter.




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