Pocket PC Thoughts: Tales from Encrypt: SecureNow 2006 v1.00 Reviewed

Introduction
The year 2005 produced a number of stories about financial institutions that lost very private customer information such as credit card and social security numbers by either losing tape backups while transporting them or through the theft of laptops. Most security experts agree that if these institutions had mandated that sensitive data must be encrypted, the exposure of customers to identity theft and fraud would have been greatly reduced. Many mobile device users carry sensitive documents on their PDAs which can also be lost or stolen. Few users even take the precaution to add a simple four digit password to their device so a lost device means lost data. How many of us have left a device on an airplane or taxi cab and realized how much private information (both to you and whatever company for which you work) has been exposed to the wild? Even those of us who have devices with advanced biometric authentication techniques like fingerprint scanners are still exposed since storage cards can be removed from these devices and inserted into any card reader have their contents reviewed. Similar to the advice given to financial institutions, encrypting information stored on a mobile device is the best way to protect sensitive data. Rural Network Solutions provides a 256-bit strong software solution in their SecureNow 2006 program. Read on to find out if this program provides the security blanket we need to keep our information secure.