A recent survey conducted by a Pentagon Inspector General has resulted in the fact that the smartphones and tablet present in the US Army are not configured to remotely wipe and protect sensitive data. An individual is responsible for his/her phone data, but recent checks have revealed that the data security on these devices is poor and inconsistent.
image source ECI
At West Point Military Academy, New York, a total of 15 out of the 48 inspected mobile phones did not even have passwords to protect the phone. One would expect them to have passwords on their phones, but the lack of security has proven a bit of a shock. Additionally, Assistant Inspector General Alice Carey warned that if mobile devices remain insecure, there could be a possibility of malicious activities that could result in the disruption of Army networks and sensitive defense data may get compromised.
The spot checks have also resulted in another finding: that the Army?s Chief Information Officer (CIO) has not yet setup the necessary tracking of the non-Blackberry devices that the soldiers use. It was found that over 14,000 devices (cellphones and tablets included) were being used without obtaining appropriate authorization from the CIO.
It was not that long ago that the military caught soldier Bradley Manning, a data destruction expert, who used his mobile device as a removable storage media to transfer innumerable military and government files and give them away to Wikileaks.
The recent spot checks revealed some soldiers were using their devices as removable media, and this has concerned the authorities a bit. This recent survey by the Inspector General is proof of the fact that even though mobile technologies are changing daily, the security in the US Army isn?t.
The US army has been the most active in terms of embracing newer mobile technologies. The US military as a whole, has also been trying to make a major push in the mobile market. Not only does the Army have an app store in beta, it reconfigured its next-gen dismounted communications system around smartphones. Now, however, the Army is learning that relatively early device adoption is no substitute for protecting the information it?s increasingly keeping on phones and tablets.
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Source: http://feeds09.technorati.com/~r/trarticles/~3/H__Z2iaTIbI/
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