How secure is your handheld?

PC World - The No. 1 threat to the sensitive data stored on your handheld device or smart phone remains physically losing the device, but other threats are looming on the handheld horizon.

"When you send a defective PDA to the manufacturer for tech support, they usually give you a new one and then resell the old one," said John Girard, vice president and research director at Gartner Inc. "Buying dead machines is an ideal method of pursuing identity theft."

What's more, 90% of mobile devices lack the protection necessary to ward off hackers, according to a recent strategic planning assumption conducted by Stamford, Conn.-based Gartner.

"Most devices have IrDA, Bluetooth and wireless connections, and many of them aren't set up properly. You can just walk around with a connected device of your own and see what you can find," Girard said.

Even if there are security settings activated by default on a device, users will often turn them off if they find them unintuitive to use, he said. "Security needs to be as transparent as possible to users," Girard said.

Malicious Code

While security researchers have developed "proof of concept" viruses for handheld devices and smart phones, nothing has been seen yet "in the wild," said David Perry, global director of education at antivirus developer Trend Micro Inc. in Cupertino, Calif. "E-mail is easier. It's universal, and PDAs aren't."

Since handheld device users can still choose from several operating systems, they face a lower risk that a widespread virus will hit mobile devices.

"As long as it's really easy to do Windows and e-mail, why should people bend themselves out of shape to hit something else?" Perry asked.

But the possibility of always-on wireless connectivity of smart phones and handhelds opens the door to malicious code.

"There was a screen saver being passed around in Europe that would put your phone into a loop and lock it up," Girard said. "And worms on a Web site that you visit with your PDA could switch on Bluetooth. But we don't see viruses or malicious code being a significant threat for mobile devices until the end of 2005."

Protect Your PDA

That doesn't mean you should consider the information on your mobile device completely safe. There are still ways to lose it -- and ways to protect yourself from data loss.

"You shouldn't keep things on a PDA that you can't afford to lose. And be vigilant -- don't let it get lost or stolen," Girard said.

Also, use the "power-on" password settings in