Protect Your iPhone Accounts

July 14, 1:31 PMiPhone ExaminerKristina Allen

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Then scenario is common: you're out with a friend when your iPhone rings. You take it out of your purse or pocket to silence the ring, then place the phone down next to you. While you're saying goodbye to your friend and walking out the door you're also inadvertently saying goodbye to your iPhone which is still sitting where you left it. The next person comes by and finds your phone; maybe they will try to contact you to return the phone and maybe they won't. Either way, they now have a device that belonged to you, and that may have applications with saved passwords stored on it. Users who purchase Mobile Me and are using the iPhone 3GS have the option to wipe all data, but not all of us have that luxery. While it may seem like a hassle to always have to type in your password, it also might save you a lot of stress in your phone is ever lost or stolen.

Even individuals who do not store passwords are vulnerable to attacks on the iPhone or any device that can access the world wide web. Joe Kissell who writes for MacWorld says:

An attacker who wants to break into wants to break into one of your accounts manually might first try likely passwords such as your pets name, your anniversary, or other terms that are significant to you. If that doesn't produce results quickly, a hacker might turn to a program that rapidly tries each of of the thousands or even millions of words in a big list - a procedure known as a dictionary attack."

If the hacker is particularly interested in gaining access to your account he or she may try a brute force attempt which is one where every possible letter and number combination is tried until access is granted.

So what can you do to protect yourself? Create a strong password; MacWorld suggests the following tips for coming up with a highly secure password:

• Make them long
• Start with a sentence : ZTw12potus means Zachery Taylor was the 12th president of the United States.
• Spell out a sentence : IwasinNewYorkonDecember31,2008
• Mix and Match : Fluffy3057Bears
• Try a Password Generator 

In addition to creating secure passwords, if you have an iPhone you might consider putting the native four digit password lock on; this can be found under General Settings.

Using Mobile Me, iPhone 3GS users can also track their phone using GPS. These users can even send text messages to the lost iPhone to help any good samaritan return the phone; this service is called Find My iPhone.

Finally,  if you are an iPhone 3GS user with Mobile Me and have extremely sensitive information on your lost iPhone you can wipe the phone of all its data through the Mobile Me web interface.

The bottom line is protect your identity by protecting your accounts accessed through your iPhone or any other Internet-enabled device.