How to perform a Remote Wipe

Products

• TouchDown

Issue/Introduction

 

Resolution

TouchDown supports Remote Wipe of exchange data when connecting to an exchange 2003, 2007 or 2010 server via ActiveSync mode, and when PUSH is enabled Remote wipe is instantaneous as long as push is active. If push is not active, and you are polling, the wipe will happen only at the next poll interval

On exchange 2003
Only an admin can do the remote wipe.
To perform a remote wipe you should have Exchange 2003 mobile admin tools installed.
You can download and follow instructions at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e6851d23-d145-4dbf-a2cc-e0b4c6301453&displaylang=en

On exchange 2007 or 2010
A user can perform a remote wipe
For this, login to Outlook Web Access
Click Options on the top right corner
Select Mobile devices or phones on the left side
Select the device you want to wipe and click the Remote Wipe Data

What data is wiped
TouchDown wipes the following data on the device
TouchDown database stored on the device
All data under the /NitroDesk/ folder under the SD card (this is where attachments are downloaded, and databases and backups are stored)
TouchDown does NOT reset the phone to factory defaults (no app can do that on Android)

User-Initiated Wipe
This is a feature in TouchDown where a user can cause a remote wipe by sending an email to themselves using a specially crafted subject line.

To set this up,

1. Go to TouchDown Settings, to the Advanced tab
2. Press Remote Kill button
3. Type in a secret code, eg.: MYKILLCODE
4. Press OK, and provide your exchange password to confirm
5. Press Save in the settings screen

At this point TouchDown is ready for a remote kill. From this point, if TouchDown receives an email with the subject line containing TDKILL:MYKILLCODE anywhere in it, all the corporate data will be deleted. Since this can be quite an inconvenience if you did not intend it, make sure no one else knows about the kill code you have set.

WARNING !
Once you perform a remote wipe on the device the TouchDown will keep wiping itself if you try to run reconfiguration on it again.

To make sure that this doesn't happen, please go to the appropriate location where you performed the remote wipe from, and then make sure that the device entry is removed from there.