Mobile Tweaks

SecureMe; Anti-theft and Device Security for your Smartphone

Posted on May 09, 2009 by Nick Mitty

This is a review of SecureMe from killermobile.com.

Review Conditions

SecureMe version 1.20 for S603rd was installed on a Nokia E71, an S60 3rd edition FP1 device.

Installation

SecureMe comes as a .SIS file and can be installed using the Nokia PC Suite.

First View

What are the consequences of loosing your Smartphone? The geeky Smartphone user not only has contacts, birthdays, anniversaries and appointments but also email passwords, bank account numbers, debit and credit card numbers. I have a Smartphone with a qwerty keyboard and a document viewer and I type in a lot of information – thoughts about my blog posts, intellectual property that cannot be shared, etc. And the hundreds of SMSes that you wouldn’t be happy for someone to see. While all the data is retrievable, thanks to backup software for the desktop or to the cloud (read VUFONE review) the information simply must be lying around in someone else’s hands. How would you like to render your mobile useless in the hands of a thief who has stolen it? Read on.

Main Review

Upon installation, SecureMe registers the SIM number with itself. Therefore, if the mobile’s SIM is changed by a thief, SecureMe finds that an unauthorized SIM has been inserted and disables the mobile. Typically, thieves turn off the mobile immediately after stealing it and then change the SIM card at the first opportunity to do it. You can ask, what if the thief disables the application? He can, if he can bring up SecureMe on the mobile. The only way to open SecureMe on the mobile is to enter a password with a #<password>. Until then, the application is hidden and cannot even be viewed using applications like Handy Taskman or JBTaskman. The only option for the thief is to remove the application completely.

Disabling the mobile can be done at different levels. A simple screen and keypad lock with an offending message like “STOLEN MOBILE!!!” is is enough. Further, you can hide the memory or hide all multimedia – photos, videos, music or hide contacts and delete the messages. All of the above can be done too, but I will just go for locking the screen and keypad. If you want to share you mobile with a friend, you can hide some information without completely locking the phone down. The “SIM Attack”, i.e. hiding or locking information can be triggered after a few minutes, which is configurable.

In addition to disabling the mobile, SecureMe also sends out messages and makes calls to specific numbers, with other information like Cell Information. SecureMe also sounds a siren when it locks the mobile!

After changing the SIM is changed, if the password is entered, the SIM gets authorized automatically. You have “Restore Contents” to get access to all data.

The text message to the registered mobile number looks like this. It has the IMSI, IMEI and Network information.

Handling

Initially after installation, even when I knew that SecureMe will be hidden, I couldn’t find out how to bring up the application to configure it. The instructions said I should use #<password> but it didn’t work on my E71 because the E71 has native support typing characters on the home screen. SecureMe had instead configured Long press of Green Call key to bring up the application. This is not documented and it took me a while to figure this out.

The E71 has a build in application that lets us to lock out the phone by sending an SMS with a specific text. This is also good, but it will work only if the thief delays in changing the SIM card.