Hard To Wipe Smartphones Clean @McAfeeConsumer

30 Jul 2012 · 2 min

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This content was created by Robert Siciliano. This content was uploaded by Robert Siciliano. This is a YouTube consumer-report segment titled "Hard To Wipe Smartphones Clean @McAfeeConsumer" (3 On Your Side) published July 30, 2012. The piece is a news/interview-style report by Jim Donovan featuring McAfee security expert Robert Siciliano and input from several interviewed smartphone users (labeled SPEAKER A/C/D). Donovan and Siciliano describe tests on 30 used devices bought on eBay and Craigslist that revealed retained personal data—Social Security numbers, usernames/passwords, bank and credit-card information, explicit content, and other files—and note that factory resets produced mixed results (BlackBerry and iPhone performed well; many Android phones still exposed data). The segment warns viewers to thoroughly wipe or destroy storage before disposing of phones.

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These days our smartphones can carry as much personal information as what we store on our computers, and much of that data is very sensitive. As 3 On Your Side consumer reporter Jim Donovan finds, when it comes time to ditch your old phone, the safeguards many of us take to protect our information just isn't good enough.
What kind of information do you keep on your cell phone?
All the contacts, all my phone numbers, um, my Facebook, so that kind of personal information too.
There's a lot I have a lot of passwords to my internet, um, like my bank account.
This is where we found the most amount of data.
McAfee security expert Robert Siciliano recently tested smartphones that people thought they had stripped of personal information before putting them up for sale.
And what we found was surprising. People left their entire digital lives on mobile phones, including BlackBerrys, Symbian phones, iPhones, and Androids.
On eBay and Craigslist, he bought 30 used devices.
We found Social Security numbers, usernames and passwords, bank account information, credit card numbers, found lots and lots of porn, found all kinds of files that would allow us to either take over an existing account or open up a new account under that person's name to steal their identity.
Now, you'd think it would take a computer whiz to access information on a cell phone after an owner pretty much wiped it clean, but experts say there's software out there that allows practically anyone to do that. While most of us know how to remove to remove the SIM card and the SD card when retiring a phone. That's critical, but it's not enough. The phone manufacturers will also tell you to go to your settings menu and restore factory settings. But even that yielded mixed results for Siciliano.
While BlackBerry did a fantastic job of removing the data, and so did iPhone, Android didn't. Uh, so we found a ton of information on Android phones.
In the past, Siciliano sold his old devices, but that won't happen again.
I will destroy that drive before I give my identity away for $50. A smart lesson for our smartphones. Reporting for 3 on