The Blackberry Patch: Secure Your BlackBerry!
Do you worry about losing your Blackberry?
Want to know how to secure your device?
Then this article is for you!
Why should you secure your Blackberry? Take a minute and think about the data in your email, addresses, phone numbers, memos, or other applications on your BlackBerry. How much of it contains FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) protected information? How much of it contains private information about employees (such as files related to employee reviews)? Did you write yourself an email containing username and password information from that website you just visited? Your email inbox probably contains some forms of private or protected information you wouldn’t want anyone to have access to.
The most important security step you can take is to set a password on your BlackBerry. This password will be required to unlock the device. If someone gets hold of your BlackBerry, they would have 10 attempts to guess your password before the device would automatically wipe itself (erasing all important data).
Please follow these steps to set a password:
- From the Home Screen, open Options (the “wrench” icon, which may also be under the Settings icon)
- Locate Security Options in the list and click to open
- Locate General Settings in the list and click to open
The following are the recommended settings changes:
- Password (the first instance), please click and change the setting to Enabled
- Lock Handheld Upon Holstering, please click and change to Yes
Press the Escape key to return to the previous menu. When prompted, select Save on the pop-up window and then it will prompt you to enter your new device password.
What should you do if you lose your BlackBerry? Immediately contact the OIT Help Desk at 426-HELP and state you lost your BlackBerry. We will contact the Blackberry Enterprise Server administrators and they will send a command to wipe all data from the device.
