School of Information Technology

Organisations today adopt a strict security policy with regards to bringing of any devices that have storage and recording capabilities into sensitive areas. Advances in mobile device technology have led to increase in such capabilities which are housed in smaller form factor. These developments have made the enforcement of security policy regarding mobile devices increasingly more challenging. With the proliferation of mobile devices such as smart phones, it appears that there are increasingly fewer phone models in the market that come with only the basic functionalities. Therefore, there is a need to mitigate the risk of employees or visitors bringing such restricted devices into sensitive premises, which can compromise the security of an organization.
 

In addition, some staff are issued with official mobile devices for work-related purposes. These mobile devices often contain classified information, which should not be leaked out to unauthorized personnel. Should any of these devices be lost, it is critical for the administrator to be able to perform recovery actions as soon as possible, such as backing up and destroying all classified information in the lost mobile device, and subsequently trach and retrieve the device whenever possible.
 

Nanyang Polytechnic has collaborated with Centre for Strategic Infocomm Technologies to explore providing several security aspects on a mobile device. The MobileSafeGuard system was developed to protect confidential and important data in a mobile device from falling into the wrong hands, thereby safeguarding the interest of organisations. The system includes features such as backing up of important data like contacts information and SMS messages in a mobile device, remote wipe out the data in the event that the phone is lost, tracking a recovering such as the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI), and exact GPS location of the mobile phone should it land into the possession of unauthorized people.