For most smart phone owners, their phone is a handy little device that serves them exclusively and is totally harmless in any way, shape, or form. They can message their friends, voice chat with family, pay bills, transfer money, etc. etc. They really have no idea how vulnerable their smart phone is, especially if it is an Android. Smart phones with the Android OS have captured over 70% of the market. That makes any phone running Android OS a huge target for the hackers and scammers.
To make matters worse, many smart phone owners leave their unlocked phone unattended on their work desk, the table in the restaurant or in their shopping cart at the supermarket. This is the perfect time for a malicious person to strike.
We have interviewed many security experts and have put together our top list of security measures to keep your smart phone safe, secure, and private.
Smart Phone Settings
The first step to securing your smart phone is to open up the Settings and be sure that none of the apps have been given more permission than they need. For example, switch off location tracking services, the camera, and the microphone. There is malware that will turn on your camera without you knowing and record you in compromising situations to be used later for extortion.
Use a Password Manager
Most people use the same password for all their logins and it is one that they chose in order to easily remember it. This is probably the worse password strategy of all. However, using unique passwords that have very high security can be a nightmare to remember. This is where a password manager comes in as you only need to remember the master password for all your logins.
Always Connect to Secure Wifi Only
It is great that when we go out to a restaurant or a friends house, we can just search for a available Wifi connection, but these hot spots are not secure and whatever we send can be intercepted by others if they have the right tools. Do not use them, but if you must, do not send any sensitive information with them. Do not shop with them and do not login anywhere with them. Best practice is do not use them at all.
Beware of Downloads
Even if you are downloading from play.google, you might get malware. There was one two years ago called Ghost trojan which infected the Android OS. It was impossible to remove because it became part of the OS. Even a Factory Reset would not remove it. The only solution was to flash the ram which is a clean install of the OS and that is not something that the ordinary user can implement; it will require a technician and cost a pretty penny.
Install Anti-Virus Software
We hear about anti-virus software for PCs and laptops all the time, but did you know that there is also anti-virus software for mobile devices? There are even free versions and they can block virus’ and hacking attempts in order to keep your phone safe. It’s definitely worth the time to research this.
Use Two-Factor Authentication
No matter how strong your password might be, a clever hacker can steal it. However, the joke is on the hacker if you are using 2FA which requires an additional password, pin code or other “factor”.