Smartphones, Foolish Security Choices

Smartphones, Foolish Security Choices
By Thomas Claburn , InformationWeek
Feb 26, 2013 | 12:35 PM |

People with smartphones could be smarter in their security practices. One smartphone user in every four, according to security firm AVG Technologies, stores intimate photos on a smartphone or tablet, a practice that makes a lost or stolen device a potential privacy problem.

AVG didn't specifically define "intimate" in its survey. "The mobile survey asks whether or not people have intimate photos of themselves on their smartphone or tablet, allowing the definition of 'intimate' to be purely up to the respondents' interpretation of that word," a company spokeswoman said in an email.

In other words, among the intimate photos said to reside on a quarter of respondents' mobile devices, not every image is likely to deserve an "X" rating. Some might not even qualify for an R or PG-13. Even so, the finding suggests that a significant percentage of smartphone users have some security and privacy blind spots.

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