The mobile phone is a wonderful thing, it has transformed our lives in ways that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.

It allows us virtually unlimited access to an online treasure trove of information, made all forms of communication and interaction unbelievably easier and allowed more of us to work remotely. All great news . . . or is it? There is so much personal information stored on our phones, financial details, photographs, social media links, family information etc, that fraudsters and hackers are positively drooling over the possibilities. When you factor in the use of the phone for work it all makes for a potential nightmare scenario.

So, how can you protect your personal information when you use one phone for both business and personal use?

One way is with an authenticated, secure and encrypted area of the phone – or any other mobile device for that matter – or cloud service that will keep personal and business information separate. From a company standpoint, this allows a firm to isolate applications and disable some app functions. It can also enable parts of the phone to be wiped remotely if it is lost or stolen. It is imperative that a separation of personal and business information is maintained by creating a sturdy firewall between the two. Another safeguard we advocate at Radius Connect is MaaS360- a system that gives you strong security over stored content and is a simple but effective way of ensuring your data is safe and remains so.

Why is it more important than ever?

The growing need to use the personal phone for business purposes is blurring the lines of where one ends and the other begins. You must be on constant alert against a cavalier attitude developing over security as more and more time is spent flipping from one to the other. It is estimated that 39% of people have downloaded malware onto a phone or tablet and that 10 million mobile devices are lost or stolen throughout the country each year. These figures show just how vulnerable we are to the possibility of our business and personal information being breached.

We all have a responsibility to ensure we take whatever steps are necessary to limit the risks and Radius Connect can help you achieve this.