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The stress of lost and stolen phones
Your boss arrives and makes a beeline for your desk. She looks worried, stressed. She’s lost her phone. Left it on the tube or had it stolen, she’s not entirely sure.
“It’s protected, isn’t it? You look after IT so can you make sure my personal and work stuff is safe and sort it urgently! Thanks.”
How confident would you be in your response?
Keep calm and carry on
You are not sure if your boss expects you to have anticipated this. Are you meant to have set some protection up?
Judging from a quick Google search, this happens a lot and there’s loads that you could do. But what applies in this situation? You’re not even sure what phone she has. Or what is on it. That doesn’t feel good.
Can we track it? Can we wipe it? Or will that delete all the data she asked you to keep safe? Is there a backup? How recent is the backup?
She’s in a meeting for the next hour, except 20 minutes of that has already gone and you are still deciding what’s best to do. It’s up to you to sort it out, and the clock is ticking. She’s come out of the meeting to say she can’t log on to a website because she needs her authentication code from the phone she doesn’t have, can you sort that out as well?
Maybe it’s best to sort out a new phone first and then worry about the lost one. But you think her credit card is in the phone’s wallet. Maybe best to prioritise that.
Think now, avoid panic later
Given the frequency of thefts, it’s worth considering before they are stolen how you will react to a theft or loss.
We forget how much we rely on phones until they are gone. We also underestimate how much we stand to lose besides the phone itself.
It’s shocking how much data is on them. They provide access to our work and personal email, financial apps and data stores such as OneDrive or iCloud.
They also give access to our network of clients, colleagues and family via email, social media and messaging apps.
This all adds up to quite a big business risk that you might well want to mitigate with rules and policies to encourage security-minded behaviour. But people tend to forget rules and policies, which means your company’s security is reliant on different individual applications of what is safe. How can a technical solution like Mobile Device Management (MDM) help?
The peace of mind MDM provides
- Provides a list of devices you own and what is on them, so you can assess the dangers.
- Set mandatory passcodes to help prevent access to lost and stolen devices.
- Separate personal and work elements on phones so it is clear who is responsible for what data.
- Gives you more control and a quick response when there is a problem.
- Erase a device remotely when it is lost or stolen.
- Control what apps can be installed and what data can be copied or forwarded.
- Centralised management of all your devices.
In 2022, 98,000 phones were stolen in London. That’s one phone every 6 minutes. If you want to consider MDM to protect your clients, your data, your money and your reputation, get in touch for a free, expert 20-minute consultation, no strings attached.
