Everyone has experienced that gut-wrenching feeling when you look around and realize that one of your prized possessions is missing. Whether it’s your wallet, keys, or smartphone, that feeling of panic and loss is devastating. In today’s digitally connected world that feeling has become incredibly too common.
In a recent Digital Assets survey, McAfee discovered that in the U.S., nearly 90% of us own 2 or more digital devices and a quarter of us own 5 or more! The more devices we have, the higher the chance that we’ll misplace one or fall victim to an increasing number of criminals interested in the high value our gadgets hold. In fact, last year the New York City Police reported that more than 40% of all robberies now involve cell phones, and in San Francisco nearly half of all robberies involved a cellphone.
These stats are concerning given that a missing laptop, smartphone, or tablet is not just an inconvenience, it’s an active security risk for you and those you care about. Emails, credit card information, photos, and family and friends’ personal contact information are just a few examples of the wide range of sensitive data stored on the devices we carry around on a daily basis.
So what if you could entirely eliminate that gut-wrenching feeling of panic and loss?
Now you can with McAfee’s Smart Perimeter, a security service that enables devices to track each other through a safety perimeter created by the user around a group of devices. Once the virtual perimeter is established, if one of the devices is separated from the others by more than 30 feet or taken outside the designated area, Smart Perimeter alerts you immediately, helping to prevent loss or theft. Whether you tend to forget your tablet at a friend’s house or someone tries to walk away with your smartphone while you’re on the train, Smart Perimeter alerts you as soon as your mobile device has moved outside a designated area, letting you know it’s been left behind or someone else is trying to walk away with it. It allows you to create a virtual security fence or wall so that you don’t have to keep a constant eye on each device.
For example, let’s say you’re at the airport for a business trip reviewing a presentation with a colleague at a coffee shop on your tablet. When it’s time to leave you forget your smartphone on the table and nobody notices because you and you’re coworker are rushing to get to the gate on time. With Smart Perimeter, your tablet will ring an alarm so before you’re too far and it’s too late, you’re able to retrieve your phone.
Smart Perimeter is just one feature in McAfee Mobile Innovations, a free app that gives you access to innovative new security and productivity tools in beta that are being tested.
Our electronic devices have become essential parts of our daily lives. We take extra care to protect our families, personal information, and possessions, but what we don’t often realize is that in the wrong hands, our mobile devices can put these things at risk. Smart Perimeter is just one more solution that allows you to rest assured that McAfee will protect your digital life for you.