Secure Mobile Devices with Encryption

Learn how mobile encryption can protect the data on your device

With the increase in mobile devices, it is sensible that more businesses are using mobile devices to process, store, and transmit card data. But with the increase in technology comes the increase altogether kinds of security issues. One common issue is stolen or lost devices.

Say you've got a tablet that has sensitive information thereon , like card data, personal information, etc. If that tablet is stolen, all that data is now within the wrong hands. So how do you secure that data? Things like physical security and mobile device policies are good at protecting the device itself, but a method to guard the info on the device is encryption.

What is encryption?

The idea is to guard your data from falling into the incorrect hands, should someone get ahold of a mobile device. Full disk encryption (FDE) encrypts all the info on your memory device .

Full disk encryption is basically encryption on a hardware level. It automatically converts data on a tough drive into something that can’t be deciphered without the key. Without the right authentication key, the data is inaccessible, even if a hard drive is removed and placed in another machine.

What’s nice about FDE is it’s automatic, so it requires no special action from the user aside from providing a key. As data is written, it’s automatically encrypted, and as it’s read, it’s automatically decrypted.

Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have encryption options which will also provide protection of storage. In this case, it’s not typically a disk but remains just storage that’s encrypted and accessed using some key. It’s usually just a matter of enabling the acceptable options and an additional step to supply a key.

Why should I use encryption?

If your organization deals with a lot of mobile devices that carry critical data, it’s a good idea to make sure none of that data falls into the wrong hands. Using encryption is another step to properly securing your data. Taking this extra step in security can help many organizations.

This can also protect you from liability. If a tool is lost or stolen, and it had been fully encrypted, organizations don’t need to report a breach.

What should I use encryption for?

Encryption is basically useful for laptops and other smaller devices which will be physically stolen/lost. This ensures that ought to a laptop, phone, USB, etc. is stolen or lost, the info remains secured. While it's going to be true that encrypting mobile devices isn't required by all government or financial mandates, taking this extra step in security can help many organizations.

Basically, you should consider encryption for any mobile device that is storing sensitive data.

What type of encryption should I get?

There are many different types of encryption software and tools. Some come with other security elements included. Many computers and software already come with options like full disk encryption. But the matter is that this software is typically available on most devices, but many businesses don’t know it hasn’t been implemented. Fortunately, it’s fairly easy to activate encryption on devices.

Check if your current software offers storage encryption. If not, there are many tools that provide encryption.

How secure is encryption?

Keep in mind that encryption doesn’t guarantee the security of your data. Encryption keys can still be stolen. With full disk encryption, cold boot attacks are often used where keys are stolen by cold booting a machine, then dumping the contents of its memory before the info disappears. Some best practices are to secure the encryption key properly, employ a strict password policy, and limit access to these keys.

So if your business uses tons of mobile devices, implementing encryption may be a great security tool to guard your data.

Faisal Ebrahim (CEH, Security+, MCP, MVP, ITIL, PMP, NLP,CCNA,ACSP,AWS,OCP) is a Senior Business Development Manager at Hilal Computers with an extensive background in Information Security and 20+ years in IT.

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