How to Secure Data on Your PDA

Personal Digital Assistants, PDA’s are great way to carry a lot of personal information with you, but that convenience can turn into a curse if the wrong person gets his hands on it. The other major problem is losing the data newly entered onto your PDA if you leave it somewhere. Here’s how to secure the data on your PDA.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Back up to your desktop often. I usually do so just before I leave with it for the day. Desktop computers aren’t flawless either, so I’ve gotten into the habit of backing up my desktop data to a firewire drive frequently, while I back up my financial data after each and every access to my accounting software.

2. Understand how your PDA exchanges data with your desktop computer. Your home is protected by locks. Given the dropping costs of computers, many burglars won’t even bother stealing one if they break in, so the data on your desk top computer is much safer than that on your PDA. However if you use MS Outlook to track your client, business associate or friends every piece of information entered in the contacts or calendar portion of you program is transferred to your PDA when you synchronize between them. PDAs also allow you to synch between files like those in MS Word and Excel so you can take your work on the road. Divide your desktop hard drive into categories. In the chance that your PDA gets hacked, the most sensitive information simply won’t be there.

3. Establish a password. Devices that run on both the Palm Operating system and Pocket PC system both allow you to establish a password to get access to your device. On a Palm you’ll find it under Preferences. There you can establish an alphanumeric password and a quick unlock with the navigation button. You can establish when you want to lock out a user such as when the device powers off or after a certain delay. You can also opt to mask or hide records that you deem private. In a Pocket PC you can access this feature under Settings, going to the Personal tab, then choosing select Password. Enter one and check “require password when device is turned on.”

4. Look into third party software. There are many to consider most priced for less than $20 offering increasing levels of protection including PDABomb for Palms, and PocketLock for PC’s which actually encrypt your data. These could prove quite useful if you work with confidential data like medical records. You can find these and similar applications at Handango.com

Tips & Warnings

• If you use one device as both your cell phone and PDA turn to your user's manual for password information. Look for the option that allows you to answer your phone without having to enter a password first.