LAWTECH GURU BLOG by Jeff Beard

Juicy Blackberry Information Leaves a Stain

It's truly amazing what one can buy for under $20 on eBay these days:

Wired News details a cautionary tale for firms with confidential information stored on their employees' and principals' mobile devices: BlackBerry Reveals Bank's Secrets.

For a mere $15.50, a Seattle computer consultant picked up a Blackberry on eBay that contained high-level e-mails, names, addresses, phone numbers and transactions relating to Morgan Stanley, their clients and executives worldwide, and even the seller's personal financial information. The seller was a former VP of M&A at Morgan Stanley.

The VP's e-mail account was closed, but much of the data still resided on the device. He simply had no idea that data could remain on a device long after he removed the battery. (Apparently this guy never heard of flash memory.)

It's 10:00, do you know where your Blackberry is? Or PDA, cell phone, laptop, tablet PC, etc., for that matter. This is the perfect "poster child" situation for why mobile security solutions and procedures are a good thing to have -- and more importantly, follow.