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CompTIA A+ Certification All-in-One Exam Guide

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and desktop, plus what was available if your Dropbox credentials were

compromised, and any copies that transited over the network. Perhaps the

attacker stole them directly from the company that did your taxes.

The point is that leaked files are a risk, a potential symptom of an ongoing

security issue, and a possible clue to what that issue might be. A full audit of

the many ways an important file could’ve leaked out of a networked

environment is beyond what can be expected of a CompTIA A+ tech, but he

or she may well get the first chance to escalate the issue, or write it off as a

compromised login and make the user change passwords.

EXAM TIP Portable and mobile devices present amazing opportunities for

your personal information to become much less personal and a lot more

public. The CompTIA A+ 1002 exam calls this “leaked personal files/data,”

but it could just as easily be translated as “your phone password wasn’t

strong and you left the phone in a kiosk at the ski resort.” (Not that this has

ever happened to me.)

Unauthorized Account Access

Unauthorized account access is a big deal not only for the mobile device

itself, but also for all organizational networks it can connect to. If someone

steals the account credentials or is able to access a mobile device configured

to remember the credentials, then they have an entry point into an

organizational network. As discussed earlier, you should plan based on the

assumption every device will be lost.

To keep VPN and e-mail connections secure, the device should not store

user names and passwords for connecting automatically. This way, lost or

stolen devices can’t be used to access these services (at least not without also

stealing credentials) because they still require authentication. Unauthorized

account access can lead to a malicious person stealing or accessing data not

only on the device, but also on the larger network.

When a device is lost, act with an abundance of caution. Treat the

previously described precaution as something to protect you until the device

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