Be careful what you store on your mobile device. It's a long held maxim that came more clearly into focus this past week following reports of a lost Apple iPhone containing nude photos. According to a story in the Associated Press, Phillip Sherman accidentally left his iPhone behind at a local McDonald's franchise in Fayetteville, Arkansas. After he returned to retrieve it, he said he discovered nude photos of his wife that he'd stored on his iPhone had been illegally distributed on the Internet without his consent.

Now he and his wife, Tina, are suing the McDonald's Corp., the franchise owner and the store manager for $3 million in damages, according to the AP, for "suffering, embarrassment and the cost of having to move to a new home." The suit says that Sherman left the phone at the McDonald's in July and that employees promised to secure it until he returned.

Whatever the outcome of the case, security experts say it's another example of how unauthorized access and distribution of inappropriate or confidential content can ignite corporate brand disasters and data security headaches.

"Photos like nude shots of someone's spouse are not the only sensitive data on a smartphone," Tom Cross, IBM X-force researcher, told InternetNews.com. The X-Force is a research group within IBM’s Internet Security Systems division.

"Users are carrying these devices everywhere as they use it for both work and life," explained Cross.

See here for the full story at InternetNews.com.