Tech bytes for tea?

The ownership and use of mobile phones to access the internet and stay connected is fast catching up with the use of computers.

Yet, the awareness of mobile security remains wanting compared to the relative maturity in security awareness for general computer usage.

David Freer, Vice President, Consumer, Asia Pacific and Japan, Symantec. Photo taken on a mobile phone.

I was briefed on the results of the Norton Mobile Survey this morning at their offices at Suntec Singapore. A summary of the detailed numbers can be found at the end of this post. Here’s how the survey was conducted.

This was the same survey which found that “76% of Internet users in Singapore would rather forgo US$1million than give strangers unlimited access to their computers”.

What stood out from the numbers was the disparity between the greater dependence and use of our mobile phones on one hand (see sideboxes), and on the other hand the lagging level of mobile security in their usage.

So we’re doing an awful lot of things on our mobile phones – pretty much the same sort of things we do on our computers – in terms of accessing the Internet and staying connected. (And snapping the cover photo for this article.)

Need for greater awareness of mobile security

Yet almost half of the mobile users in Singapore do not take the simple step of using passwords to protect their phones, even though 61% of Singaporeans acknowledge that mobile threats are real.

In addition, some 30% are not aware that they can remotely track their phone using GPS navigation software.

Is it because we’re still trapped in the age when mobile phones were less capable and we were less dependent on them – and therefore had little to lose if a mobile phone was lost or stolen.

You know, when we had feature phones, the most painful thing about losing the phone was the loss of the contacts on them, and the hassle of having to replace them.

Viruses and malware for feature phones were almost unheard of.

US$1million for complete access to your computer?

Now, your smartphone can store a substantial trove of precious PERSONAL photos and videos, work-related documents and apps that access your stockmarket transactions.

The survey found that for the one in three Singaporeans who have had their mobile phone stolen/lost, most of them (78%) mentioned that losing their contact information was the worst part of the experience, with 52% feeling their privacy had been invaded.

To resolve their lost/stolen phone situation, two in three Singaporeans had paid an average of S$424.

The survey found that three in five Singaporeans would rather pay a ransom averaging S$273 in order to resolve their lost/stolen phone problem – assuming they were offered the chance.

This is almost double the S$148 “ransom” that half of those surveyed in LAST YEAR’s study were willing to pay.

Dark cloud arising

Personally, I believe the concern with lost contact information will diminish rapidly with the convenience of syncing contact and calendar information with cloud-based services, such as iCloud and Google.

These cloud services allow you to reinstate contact lists and calendars in a new smartphone in a matter of minutes.

On the other hand, the tight coupling between the smartphones with cloud services bring with it a much greater problem.

By serving as gateways to access huge repositories of information on the cloud, people who lose their mobile phones stand to lose much more than just what’s physically stored on the phone itself.

It’s akin to losing a wallet full of cash viz-a-viz losing a wallet full of cash and a couple of credit cards.

So, if you haven’t enabled remote locking or wiping, anyone losing their phone would also need to change the passwords of all the online services the phone and its apps has been authorised to access.

Emails accounts, Facebook/Twitter accounts, Dropbox are but a few that immediately pop into mind. How many of these can you recall off the top of your head, and in the heat and stress of having realised you’ve just lost your phone?

Below is a summary of the main findings of the Norton Mobile Survey 2012.

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