Smartphones and PDAs are designed to make people mobile, which means they carry all essential information required for efficient communication and productive work. We should be able to answer our emails, timely send an important agreement to the customer, login to Internet bank or make online purchases – all these using PDA only. This leads to perfect mobility and efficiency, but at the same time increases risks. Having credit card numbers, banking passwords, company confidential documents or customer information get into wrong hands may become both privacy disaster and a serious compliance issue.
Even if you use on-the-fly encryption (What is on-the-fly encryption?) to protect some areas of your PDA, lots of data will remain unprotected. Temporary copies of the documents can be stored in the device free memory. Deleted files, contacts, SMS messages, email and browsing history can be easily recovered using data recovery tools.
The solution to it is data sanitizing (wiping).
When you simply delete a file or a contact, you're in fact telling the operating system it can overwrite the space that the file occupied. The system simply removes the file address from the file system table, but the data itself remains there until it is overwritten, which can happen even within months from the moment you actually deleted file. Even damaged PDAs can yield secrets when examined by forensics experts.
Ways to Try to Erase PDA Data | Is the Data Truly ERASED? |
Simply delete the file | No |
Format the removable media card | No |
Hard reset the device | No |
Use SecuWipe to wipe data on device and memory cards | Yes! |
Does formatting the SD card erase sensitive data?
Many people believe the best way to erase memory card data is by formatting it. But, contrary to popular belief, formatting your SD card DOES NOT erase data!
Does hard resetting the PDA/Smartphone sanitize sensitive data?
When you hard reset your device the device internal memory is overwritten with default factory settings. This may overwrite some of your contacts and emails, but definitely not all - since hard reset does not wipe the free space of your device memory (Read more about wiping free space here). This means that practically all your contacts, email messages and other sensitive data is still residing in the device memory - easily recoverable by forensic experts.
The only way to erase Pocket PC data is to overwrite data on your Pocket PC and its memory cards with random information. The method is to write over the same physical spot on device multiple times with different patterns.
SecuWipe uses a number of strong methods for data destruction (Read more about SecuWipe data sanitizing methods here). Using SecuWipe will completely erase Pocket PC data and protect yourself from data and identity theft.
