Don't Use SMS for Confidential Communication - Gartner Research
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An interesting lead from Gartner Research, dated November 26th reports about "a mobile phone operator dismissed two workers for providing copies of a user's Short Message Service (SMS) messages to a friend. The case shows why enterprises should not send private messages via SMS.".

The article follows a recent sentence in the UK (Nov.2002) that sent a university student to jail for a five month term, after he had asked a telephone provider accommodating operators to intercept key SMS messages sent to or from his girlfriend mobile.

The article notes that: "SMS is not a secure environment.
Breaching security often occurs more easily by concentrating on people rather than technology. The contents of SMS messages are known to the network operator's systems and personnel.
Therefore, SMS is not an appropriate technology for secure communications."

The story also illustrates how much easier it is to hack human beings than technology infrastructures.

International organizations looking to enable more secure communication channels to its mobile staff should give preference to the use of encrypted e-mail channels such as the BlackBerry by Research in Motion, www.blackberry.net/index.shtml or to new secure ways to distribute messages to dispersed team members such as LoudPC (www.LoudPC.com), Groove (www.groove.net), Quickplace (www.ibm.com) or other emerging and collaboration technologies.

Download this article in PDF format at:
http://www3.gartner.com/resources/111700/ 111720/111720.pdf