A Lesson from Paris Hilton

Oct 1, 2006 12:00 PM

Remember hearing the tale of socialite Paris Hilton and the unfortunate hacking of her T-Mobile Sidekick? Scores of phone numbers and e-mail addresses linked to her A-List celebrity friends and professional colleagues were published on the Internet for all to see. It's a good thing Ms. Hilton didn't have any classified corporate product secrets lingering in her saved files.

As the risk of contracting a virus on a mobile device increases, security experts are researching ways to detect them quickly. The Trusted Computing Group industry association recently defined a new set of security standards to facilitate secure storage of data in cell phones and PDAs. The Mobile Trusted Module Specification (MTM) stores data that ensures the device's operating system and components have not been virtually or physically tampered with in a protected area of the phone. The MTM divides the phone's components into a list of trusted engines, which continually report on the security vulnerabilities of each application, thus keeping the user informed of any threat. Vendors will determine if the MTM will be silicon chip or a system-on-a-chip implementation, and products with this specification will likely hit the market soon.

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This month in Access Control

• Targeting The Customer
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• One Hero Among Many
• Who? What? When? Where? Why?
• More from September's issue