Sunday 9 September 2007

Stating the obvious: mobile mistakes are easy to make

It seems common sense to me that anyone using email out of the office is going to be more at risk of making silly mistakes. It may be late in the evening, they may be rushed as they’re concentrating on something else, or they may be using a mobile device that’s not as easy to use as their main office PC or laptop.

The business climate nowadays only encourages this, what with mobile working being so heavily encouraged, clients in different time zones and so on.

So it only seems logical that information leak prevention should cover users when they’re out and about. Doesn’t it?

It still surprises me that so much effort in ILP focuses on desktop tools, which by definition won’t cover remote working and PDAs, Blackberrys etc. The server seems the only sensible place to put the ILP protection.

I did get my assumptions backed up recently by some research from Nokia, which is always nice. This says three quarters of workers use mobile devices to email clients outside working hours, and paints a picture of them “writing their emails from locations including pubs, parties and taxis”. Scary stuff!

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