Data Recovered from Cellphones

Okay, granted this is a marketing stunt by a security company, but its a pretty cool stunt, and one that I think may be worth paying attention to. Many cellphones that integrate with corporate email such as Blackberry, Treo and Windows Mobile may keep data on the flash that was supposed to be deleted. This data can be recovered with the right tools, and could expose information that you would certainly wish to keep protected.

From the AP here:

WASHINGTON – Don’t tell your cell phone any secrets. It might not keep them. Second-hand phones purchased over the Internet surrendered credit card numbers and bank account passwords, business secrets and even evidence of adultery.

One married man’s girlfriend sent a text message to his cell phone: His wife was getting suspicious. Perhaps they should cool it for a few days.

“So,” she wrote, “I’ll talk to u next week.”

“You want a break from me? Then fine,” he wrote back.

Later, the married man bought a new phone. He sold his old one on eBay, at Internet auction, for $290.

The guys who bought it now know his secret.

The married man had followed the directions in his phone’s manual to erase all his information, including lurid exchanges with his lover. But it wasn’t enough.

A company, Trust Digital of McLean, Va., bought 10 different phones on eBay this summer to test phone-security tools it sells for businesses. The phones all were fairly sophisticated models capable of working with corporate e-mail systems.

Curious software experts at Trust Digital resurrected information on nearly all the used phones, including the racy exchanges between guarded lovers.

The other phones contained:

• One phone surrendered the secrets of a chief executive at a small technology company in Silicon Valley. It included details of a pending deal with Adobe Systems Inc
• One company’s plans to win a multimillion-dollar federal transportation contract.
• E-mails about another firm’s $50,000 payment for a software license.
• Bank accounts and passwords.
• Details of prescriptions and receipts for one worker’s utility payments.

The recovered information was equal to 27,000 pages a stack of printouts 8 feet high.

You should ensure that your data is completely wiped before selling it or giving it away. Or you can do what my brother tends to do quite a bit- lose it over the side of the boat while deep sea fishing.