PDA's in the Enterprise

[PPC_Ed]

I've been given the task of coming up with a PDA policy at my company. We're currently only allowing installation of Palm OS devices. :x I'm probably going to expand this to include Pocket PC's and Blackberry's, but what kind of security concerns should I be looking at for Pocket PC's? I'm mostly looking at how easy would it be to get at the data on a PPC with a startup password and whether it's necessary to use encryption software. Also, has there been any viruses for the PPC?

Is it true that if you edit a Pocket Word or Pocket Excel file on the PPC that you may lose some advanced formatting when it gets transferred back to the PC?

Thanks for any help anyone can provide.

Ed

[Brad Adrian]

The security issues are kind of the same, no matter what type of device you're talking about, Palm or Pocket PC. A power-on password can be used, but there are also plenty of encryption apps out there that will protect data if someone gets past the power-on.

And, to date, I am not aware of any viruses that have infected a Pocket PC.

Finally, yes, there are differences in the functionalities between desktop and Pocket PC versions of Word . If you need full-functioned applications that can support things like outlining, tables, etc. one third-party app you could look at is Text Maker. Pocket Excel is pretty powerful and supports nearly all the functions. It won't do graphs, though.

Having said all this, though, I am convinced that the Pocket PC still affords a lot more functionality and versatility than any Palm device.

[JvanEkris]

Security is not much of an issue. Your power-on password will block it from unauthorized entry. The only way to activate it without the password is by a hard reset (= formatting the harddisk of a PC), which results in a total loss of all data in the system. Exception is of course the CF and SC expansion cards. They can contain data as well. We have a policy that data on those cards is encrypted by using F-secure.

Jaap

[PPC_Ed]

Thanks for the replies. I remember hearing about some type of virus for the Palm, but never heard anything about the PPC's.

[frauen1]

There was what I call an "almost-virus" for Palm a couple of years ago - the developer of the Liberty Gameboy emulator had built a version that had a virus built in - he also experiments with security and has written a good white paper for Palm-based security.

Of course, the anti-virus companies have had a field day with this - got them into a new market (always a good thing, especially when you have a goblin to point at).

The "truth" is that these devices are only really beginning to get connected, and in the future there will be malicious programs that do damange them. These devices today are inherently less secure than the desktop (if for no other reason than the fact that they are less mature platforms). A lot of lazy s/w developers have left holes in their programs that could be used to do some damage. The good thing is that the damage will be less severe for the forseeable future. A common point is that the weakest point is still going to be the human element (people not taking adequate precausions, or disgruntled employees, etc.). Haven't yet seen a good security program that handles them well :wink:

[JohnnyFlash]

I think there has been a few virus developed for the pocket pc or at least my copy of PPC Pc-Cillin has a few listed, or maybe its just there for decoration, but I would think its so hard to contract them its almost not even looking into. As far as password issues, unlike the palm which requires u to go to the security menu and tap "turn off and lock", with the exception of a select few palm os handhelds, the ppc lets u set it to automatically ask for a password when the device is turned back on. So in most cases its easier to lock a pocketpc. As far as other security concerns, that would most likely include some bluetooth, wifi, and wireless modem equiped devices I would have no doubt that some mean person somewhere will come up with a way to hack such ways of wireless communication, and when the department of defense arrests such a person, I'm sure we will all feel better. lol

Later