What advice do you have on disaster recovery and security for mobile devices?

Harvey Betan discusses the proper steps to take to avoid a disaster when using a mobile device. They include backing up and securing your data to another location.

In any disaster recovery (DR) situation, you must consider the value of the data on your mobile device, and how quickly you can restore lost data and continue functioning. If you have a simple cellular phone, it contains at the very least, your phone contacts. If you have a more sophisticated device, such as a BlackBerry or iPhone, it may also store your calendar, notes, email and other information. You need to ask yourself, "What if I lose the device, it breaks, or some technical glitch occurs and the data is unavailable?" Do you have a backup or some other means of recreating the data?

If you have valuable data on your mobile device, I recommend synchronizing your device with a computer and then as an added measure, either print the data or make an additional copy on other media such as USB drives. Some vendors also allow you to upload data onto their equipment. Regardless of where the data is stored, it should be in a separate location that you can access. For example, if you are storing your data on a PC, copy your...

data on a regularly to another device such as USB drives or some other media.

Another issue to address is security. Data is vulnerable if it falls into the wrong hands. In order to avoid security issues, it's best to encrypt your data. For instance, if you are backing your data up to a PC, you can encrypt or password-protect the directory where your data is stored. Regardless of what way you back up and encrypt your data, make sure there is also an additional backup device that contains your data.

This was first published in February 2010

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