Lost your phone? Symantec find out what happens next

The people at Symantec decided to do something a bit nuts. They put 50 smartphones around major American cities and equipped them with tracking and usage software. Their “Honey Stick Project” (shouldn’t that be Honey Pot?) found some pretty interesting, if not unsurprising results. The phones, by the way, had no security systems in place so they were fairly easy to get into once picked up.

The people who “found” (again, that should really be “stole”) the phones …

– Unlocked the device in 96% of cases
– A ccessed personal data and applications in 89% of cases
– Accessed business data and applications in 83% of cases
– Accessed both personal and professional data and applications in 70% of cases
– Contacted the owner in 50% of cases

So, just half of the people finding the phone contacted the owner, but for some reason nearly all of them unlocked it? Why do that? “Hey man, I’ve found your phone, I’ve just unlocked it and I’m going to sell it on eBay!”

Perhaps they mean unlocking the main screen. Anyhow, the upshot of this project seems to be that your phone will get disected and your pictures, email, files and passwords will get lifted and used. Get it protected, stick a password on and … well, just try not to lose it in the first place. Mm.. kay?

Links – Orange Business – Symantec