After Paris Hilton Hack, What You Can Do

Feb. 24, 2005 — -- Cell phones, personal handheld organizers and mobile data devices such as the Blackberry have become the digital equivalent of those old "little black books." They contain plenty of important, personal data, all accessible at the click of a few buttons.

Convenient? Yes. Dangerous? Doubly so. Just ask Paris Hilton.

Last Sunday, clever pranksters managed to access the Web account of the hotel-heiress' Sidekick II, a device from T-Mobile that wirelessly stores and accesses information online. Within hours of the "hack," all of Hilton's private data -- unlisted phone numbers of famous friends, personal digital photos, reminders of calls to make and parties to attend -- were available to anyone with Web access.

T-Mobile and federal investigators are still trying to determine how the data thieves managed to break into Hilton's T-Mobile account. But wireless technology experts say that such a high-profile breach should remind everyone to take important -- but often neglected -- security precautions regarding their handheld devices.

Lock It Up. If possible, make use of passwords or personal identification numbers to lock out features -- long-distance calling, access to the wireless Web -- and safeguard information stored on your handheld. The passwords or PINs should be long and difficult so others can't easily guess them. Don't use your cell phone's number as the lock-out PIN, for example. And they should be changed about every month or so.