Security incidents come in many forms, from attackers breaking into computers, unauthorized attempts to sniff wireless networks and collect information, and stolen laptops or phones. This example is the latter, a stolen smartphone.

What follows is the incident response procedure that I followed once I found out my iPhone had been stolen. It's not a comfortable feeling to know that someone else has control over a device containing your information. However, you must remain calm and follow some sort of incident response procedure. Sometimes this is not as easy as it sounds (as you will see below). Once the incident is over the most important thing you must do is learn from it. Hopefully you can learn from my experience.


Some days are better than others

This all started with one of the things I enjoy most in this world, and thats sushi (In fact Josh just pointed out that I was the one who introduced him to sushi, and now he has an entire site named after this fabulous food!). I was going out to eat with my family and was talking on my iPhone on the way. I pulled into a spot in the parking lot, got out of the car and went into the restaurant where I draped my long trench coat over the chair on the table behind me. After feasting on some sushi ("slammin' salmon" roll was awesome) we paid the bill and I all of a sudden realized I did not have my phone. I searched my pockets, no iPhone. I thought, "well, I must have left it in my coat". I searched my coat, no iPhone. I searched around the table and the table behind us where my coat had been, no iPhone. I then thought, "well, it must be in the car". I searched the car, making everyone get out all while I cursed aloud, and no iPhone. I went back into the restaurant and searched the tables again, no iPhone. The conclusion, someone had stolen my iPhone when I either dropped it getting our of the car or when it fell out of my coat pocket.