How to wipe personal data and from a lost or stolen mobile device

Transcription

1 IS Doc no 858 How to wipe personal data and from a lost or stolen mobile device This document explains what to do if your mobile device (iphone, ipod Touch, ipad, mobile phone etc.) is stolen or lost. A lot of us now use these devices to connect to their university account, and if a device falls into the wrong hands, someone else could get access to your account. There are ways that you can make sure that your data (including your account) is safe from anyone who finds or steals your mobile device. This document describes how to remotely wipe all the data from your lost or stolen mobile device using Microsoft Exchange. And for users of 4 th generation and newer Apple devices, it describes how to remotely wipe all the data from your lost or stolen device using icloud. Last updated March 2011 Information Services documents are online at: Brian McCarthy

2 Using icloud (for Apple devices only) One of the services offered as part of Apple s icloud service is the ability to locate a device that has been lost or stolen. This service is called Find My iphone. icloud was introduced with ios 5 and replaced the earlier MobileMe service. These instructions are only relevant to you, if you have a version 4 iphone or ipod Touch device (or an ipad) or higher. Note also that you must have set up this service before your device was lost or stolen. The Find My iphone app can also be installed on your device (free from the App Store), if you wish, but it s not essential. It is useful if you have more than one device as you can locate your devices in the app itself, once they are set up as follows: Tap the Settings icon and choose Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Tap the Add Account button and select icloud. 2

3 Enter your Apple ID and password. If you have an itunes Store account or have ordered from the Apple Online Store, you already have an Apple ID. If you don t have an Apple ID, tap Create Free Apple ID and follow the onscreen instructions. Click the Next button. Now you must verify your account. If your icloud account says Not Verified, check your inbox for a message from Apple. Click Verify Now and sign in with your Apple ID. If you don t see a verification in your inbox, select your icloud account and tap Resend Verification . Once you have verified, go back into Settings, select Mail, Contacts, Calendars again and then select the icloud account you just set up. Switch on Find My iphone. When the Find My iphone message appears, tap Allow. 3

4 That s it! Now, in the unfortunate event of your device being lost or stolen, you can now locate it, if it s switched on, by going to and signing in with your Apple user ID and password. After a few moments, the location of your device (if it is locatable) will appear on a map. Click on the blue arrow button to show the options available. You can display a message which will appear on your device, or you can have it play a continuous sound for 2 minutes. You can also, set, or change the four digit passcode to lock your device. The most extreme option on offer is to wipe your device. This will delete ALL data and media from your device, back to it s out of the box settings. Once you do this, you will no longer be able to locate your device using the Find My iphone service. 4

5 Note: If you have the Find My iphone app installed on another Apple device, eg an ipad, you can launch the app on the device that you still have and locate your missing device and perform the above described tasks from within the app itself. If you subsequently recover your device, you can plug it into your PC / Mac, fire up itunes and run a Sync. This will restore most of your settings and data up to the last time you Synced with itunes. To remotely wipe your mobile device using Exchange Server This section will tell you how to remotely wipe all data from your phone and reset it to its straight from the factory settings. This section applies to all users who are using a mobile device to connect to their university via the Exchange server. NOTE: If you simply don t want to use your device to check your anymore, then you just have to delete the account from your mobile. These instructions are for performing a remote wipe, should your phone be lost or stolen. In order to perform a remote wipe, you will need to log into the web based staffmail service at: - Then, follow these steps: Once logged in, click on Options in the top right (to the left of the? icon), and select See all options. Select Phone from the left hand menu. You will see a list of mobile devices that you connect to the Exchange server with. Select the device you wish to wipe and click on Wipe Device. You will be asked to Confirm. You can remove the device from the list by clicking on the X at the top right of the list once the status has updated to Wipe Completed. If you perform a remote device wipe on a mobile phone and then have to synchronise the phone with your mailbox 5

6 later, you must delete the phone from the list before you try to configure it to synchronise again. If you don't do this, the phone will perform a remote device wipe again. Note: If you are not happy performing the remote wipe yourself, you can put a request for it to be done for you through to the Helpdesk. Remember though, that this will not happen immediately as an engineer will have to be scheduled to do this for you. If your device reappears Launch the mail client on your device and see if it will sync to the Exchange server. If not, you will have to delete the account from your device and then re- set it up again. For Apple devices, see is099 from the IS document library 6