Your Old Smart Phone's Memory Could End Up Your Headache

5 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 news consumer report titled "Your Old Smart Phone's Memory Could End Up Your Headache" (published July 5, 2012). The excerpt is a short news segment from CBS 2 featuring reporter Asa Ahrens with cybersecurity expert Robert Siciliano and additional interviewees. It covers an experiment in which Siciliano bought ~30 used phones and recovered sensitive personal data, warning viewers about risks when selling or trading smartphones and advising steps (remove SIM/SD, perform factory reset) to protect personal information.

Chapters

Passwords, appointments, even pictures.
But every day people trade or sell smartphones to strangers, and tonight CBS 2 consumer reporter Asa Ahrens with a warning why wiping it clean may not fully protect you. It keeps what we need to know close at hand. It's pretty critical. I mean, I basically— my whole life is on this phone. Provides access to life's critical details.
Probably my checking account.
It provides me with a connection to everything that I need.
IDs, account numbers, passwords used to require require a laptop for storage. Now all that information fits nicely on a handheld.
There's a lot of passwords to my internet, um, like my bank account, like my Facebook is all on there.
Cybersecurity expert Robert Siciliano recently bought 30 previously owned devices, then used easily available general-use software to open them up.
People left all their information, their PDFs, Word documents, text files, Excel files, Home videos, photos, and a lot of pornography, actually. Uh, we find their entire digital lives, enough information to either steal their identities or take over, uh, existing identities.
And remember, those used phones were sold as being wiped clean by the former owners. So how do you get information off your phone? It's vital to remove both the SIM and SD cards. Even then, there's more information to worry about.
The devices themselves generally have their own, uh, storage.
The cell phone manufacturers will tell you to go to your menu and restore factory settings to clear your personal information. Wiping is well worth the effort. If you can't, just keep the cell phone and chalk up the $50 you could have sold it for to the cost of securing your cyber life. I'm Asa Ahrens, CBS 2 News.
All right, a big