Tech bytes for tea?

With the stress and inconvenience of losing one’s mobile phone, half of those who had lost one were willing to pay an average of S$148 to get their phone back, a survey of mobile phone owners in Singapore found.

That is assuming that the finder or thief offers the owner the chance to redeem their lost or stolen mobile phone. Most of the time, it’s “finders keepers” and the owners are laden with the inconvenience of reconstructing lost contact lists and worried over their private information falling into wrong hands.

Victims who have become celebrities overnight because the saucy secrets from their mobile phones have been splashed all over the Internet can attest to the stress involved.

In Singapore, where each person owns – on average – more than one mobile phone, about half (52%) of Singaporeans have lost their phones before. Despite that, only slightly more than a third (37%) currently have a password protecting their devices. These are some of the findings found by a survey commissioned by Symantec Corporation in January 2011.

With smartphones being so capable, people are relying more on them to communicate, work and play. Almost ninety percent of “Singaporeans never leave home without their mobile phones and nearly half cannot live without their phones” [Synovate 2009].

The  Norton Mobile Survey found “a whopping 89 percent of victims noting that they could neither remotely lock nor wipe the phone’s memory after the device was stolen or lost.”

“As smartphones become more pervasive in our lives, there is a greater need to protect the data on such devices.  This is one of the reasons why Norton is taking security beyond the PC to develop solutions that protect consumers, regardless of the device they use,” says Effendy Ibrahim, Internet Safety Advocate and Consumer Business Head, Asia, Symantec.

On the whole, a significant number of Singaporeans consider security factors before making a mobile phone purchase, with 72 percent noting that they are more likely to make a purchase if their mobile device or software is able to be locked remotely and has the ability to erase all the data on their device remotely.

Protection

So what does Symantec have to counter cybercriminals cashing in on increasing prevalence and reliance on smartphones? Norton Mobile Security has been introduced as part of the Norton Everywhere three-part initiative, which will address some of today’s most common issues for smartphones, including device loss and data protection.

Norton Mobile Security will allow users to locate and remotely wipe or lock their lost or stolen Android phones with a quick text message.  Consumers can currently download a free limited-trial beta version directly from the Android Market.