Windows Mobile Security

There has always remained a fine line between security and convenience and the Windows Mobile platform offers no exception to that axiom. Depending on the level of sensitive data, I rarely rely on the basic internal functions of the Windows Mobile OS to secure my data. For one thing, a majority of it resides on a removable media card that demands open access to be able to write and read to and from file systems outside of Microsoft's operating systems. I frequently swap my media card between Linux, Mac and Windows platforms so I can't rely on a Windows-only encryption technology to protect my privacy. One popular, open source encryption system available on nearly all major computing platforms is Gnu Privacy Guard, and this excellent utility has fortunately been compiled for the Pocket PC platform by Symbiotic Tools as a free download. Using Gnu Privacy Guard, or gpg for short, is relatively easy and it works identically across the platforms I've mentioned. Therefore, any sensitive account numbers, passwords and other details are protected in GPG-encrypted files regardless of whether they are in on-board memory or removable media. While setting up GnuPG on the Pocket PC platform takes a few more steps than the usual Windows Mobile install, the effort and piece of mind are worth it. This way, in the event of a lost or stolen device, the most pressing security risk is the need to change my email passwords.