Remote wipe via active sync and OMA

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

HI all

we are in the process of rolling OMA and compatable phones (2 nokias or Iphones were the choices) out across the company and I am writing the security document.

I have set in my mind the process for reporting and remote wiping the phone which goes something like

1. User reports phone is lost
2. IT team perform remote wipe
3. Get sim and phone blocked by carrier

However not having blanked the phones before the question occurs to me:

What if the phone is out of signal range (maybe in the underground) when the remote wipe command is sent, does the command stack at the carrier end waiting for the next contact and what effect would blocking the SIM have?

Can anyone help on this?

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Good question mate, honest answer no idea.

I would recommend testing this, do you have the phones now? If so create a test account get it sycnhing then go lock yourself in a cupboard with no signal and get a colleague to send the command and see what happens.

 

I was going to, but at the moment all those phones are in London and I am in Leeds which makes it somewhat difficult.

Also I was hoping that someone had tried it already - worth a try at least

Quite possibly, however I work for a partnership and the partners as a group decided they wanted iPhones and not Blackberry's with the nokias being provided for more junior members of staff.

 

Doing the Exchange Exam at present my understanding is if the phone hasn't got a signal the next time it gets a signal and tries to sync it would get the remote wipe command and wipe the device. You can also set it up whereby the user can send a remote wipe to the device from Outlook or OWA so they don't need to get the IT team to do it say if it was late at night.

 

Thanks Slypie, thats good to know - but what if we cancel the SIM (as is company policy) does that effect the remote wipe?
Didnt know about the OWA wipe - thanks for that.

 

Ahh not sure about that one but I'd assume (don't hold me on this) that if you took the Sim out you wouldn't be able to check emails and data without it. To be honest I've only really dealt with Blackberry's and never thought of trying to access data on the phone without a sim card . I would as Craigie says test every possibility and maybe contact your service provider to find out as I would of thought they would know this info on their business department.

 

Not taking it out, more we report the phone as missing and the provider stops the SIM, will have to ask Vodafone, oh well..

Thanks guys.


Edit

On the phone to them now - have confused the first 3 people I have spoken to. Being passed up the line as I type...

Edit 2

Ok spoke to their tech support guys, the priorty goes to the Sim bar because when the phone seeks to reestablish connection it will go to the nearest tower and at that point the connection will be refused with the bar being sent to the SIM. Due to the inital connection being rejected the attmpt to sync over the air with the exchange will not happen and thus the wipe wont take place.

Not the answer I wanted but good to know all the same.

Thanks again for you help guys.