Guide to Protecting Your BlackBerry Device
With personal identity theft on the rise its important to ensure that our private information is secure, unfortunately many mobile users fail to secure their personal mobile devices, the very same devices that oftentimes lead to that identity theft. Why Blackberry users don’t secure their devices escapes me, after all the process of password protecting a device, securing a memory card and even protecting other passwords you may use everyday is very simple. Below I’ve outlined the simple processes for each of those protection offerings, its not an end all to security protection but each of these steps are free and offer a great security enabled framework.
Enabling Your Blackberry Device Password
The Device password option that comes standard on your Blackberry is the easiest security measure you’ll ever setup on a mobile device, to enable this offering simply follow the steps below:
- Click on Options
- Click on Security Options
- Click on General Settings
- Enter Your New Password
You can also decide when you want that password to activate, for instance you can have your device lock every time you put your Blackberry in the holster or after a certain time limit such as 1 Minute of no use. You can also decide whether or not phone calls can come through when locked, I leave this as “yes” so my calling functions are not lost.
As you can see this is an easy setup option that can ensure at least a certain level of protection for you in the case that your device is lost or stolen.
Protecting Your Blackberry Memory Card
While protecting your device will save your personal information that’s directly installed on your Blackberry if your like me much of your data is saved directly to your MicroSD/MicroSDHC card slot which is why its ultimately important to enable memory card protection. This can be done using the simple steps below:
Click on Options
Click on Advanced Options
Click On Media Card
Choose Security Password and set your Memory Card Password.
I’m aware that those steps don’t seem like rocket science, but keep in mind that most identity thiefs are not the smartest people around, they simply manage to steal easily accessible information and a lost memory card, or a card you forget to take out of your device when you throw it away, recycle it, or sell it is definitely an easy theft away.
Protect Your Passwords Using Blackberry “Password Keeper”
Encrypting passwords that you may use on a regular or not so regular basis is an easy and free few steps away. The program which comes pre-installed on Blackberry devices is known simply as “Password Keeper” and it uses very strong industry approved encryption to protect your personal passwords.
Here’s how it works:
- From the main menu select Applications
- Then Select the Password Keeper Icon
- The first time you open the application you’ll need to choose and then confirm your new password
- Follow each step after first launch and you’ll soon have a secure way to save your passwords
Password Keeper keeps your internet passwords, credit card information, and other important information secure behind powerful encryption. The information listed above will get you into the program, I could go into a full overview of the application but the interface is so user friendly (intuitive) that there’s really no reason to give a full blow tutorial, simply launch the program as I have just shown you and you’ll be ready to go in no time.
Conclusion
I have always been an advocate of strong security measures and Mobile security has generated growing concerns, just look at the number of Celebrity devices that have been hacked over the last several years and its easy to see why secure your device should be a top priority when it comes to protecting your personal information.
As always feel free to PM me with any questions or concerns you may have.