Most people use their smartphones to communicate with friends and family, take pictures, share posts on social media, surf the web, check bank accounts, shop online, and more. All these activities lead to our mobile phones containing passwords, private messages, banking details and large amounts of personal data that need to be protected from being accessed by hackers and intruders.
To help you out, we show you 5 simple tips for protecting your personal data on your phone:
1- Update the operating system and applications:
Regardless of whether your phone is Android or iPhone, it is important to download the latest operating system update. Software updates contain fixes for all vulnerabilities, including those in previous versions. Therefore, updating your operating system is one of the most important steps you can take to protect your personal information.
However, if your smartphone model is several years old, the manufacturer may not provide security updates again. Smartphone makers work hard to maintain updates for a longer period, but you know that some types of phones may stop updating after only two years.
It is also important to keep all the apps on your phone updated with the latest security updates, as this will help protect those apps and the accounts associated with them.
2- Protect your phone with a password or use biometric security features:
We all use passwords to secure our email and online banking accounts. But many people still don't use passwords or biometric security features like fingerprints or Face ID to protect their phones and data and prevent others from using them.
Many people find it convenient to use your phone right away without having to enter a password or PIN, but this means that someone else can use your phone and access your personal information.
If your phone is stolen and you don't secure it with a password or biometric security, not only will you lose your phone, but also the personal information on your accounts. This is one of the most important things you can do to help protect your phone by securing it with a password or PIN, which is a personal or biometric security feature that prevents hackers from accessing your personal information.
When it comes to passwords, remember to protect any apps you use to access sensitive information with a unique password that's different from the one that locks your phone.
3- Use multi-factor authentication:
If you have a weak password to protect your accounts on your phone and different apps, the chances are that a hacker can guess it. If the password is strong, it may have been compromised through a hack against you or the company holding the account.
For this reason, the accounts you use on your smartphone must be protected with multi-factor authentication so that anyone who has access to the password for one of your accounts cannot directly access your account. How you will be notified to ensure that you are the person accessing the account. If you are not, you can log in, change your password immediately, and end all other active sessions.
4- Download applications and updates from trusted sources:
If you have an iPhone, the safest place to download apps is the official app store, the App Store, but if you have an Android phone, Google Play is a safe source for apps.
Most of the apps available in these stores are free but some require payment to download them, in which case some may want to look for other sources to download the same apps for free. However, if the free versions of any of these apps are not available on the official app store but are instead available on third-party websites, it may expose you to security vulnerabilities.
Online scammers and hackers know that many people are looking for cheap or free versions of many popular applications. They can display ads to promote their own malicious websites, which can look very similar to the original app site while providing a way to download the app for free.
Third party download sites are very risky. In many cases, a free downloaded application does not work properly and the download process can only serve to trick you into downloading malware or entering your username and password to steal your data.
Another common way for scammers to steal app-related data is by sending emails warning them that there is a problem with a commonly used app and you need to download a new update.
Avoid paying attention to these messages and make sure apps don't email you and ask you to download updates because this is just another way scammers use to trick you into downloading malware. If an app on your phone needs an update, opening the app will bring up a window saying that a new update is available. Or you can check the app's status in your phone's settings.
5- Be careful when connecting to public Wi-Fi networks:
Many public Wi-Fi networks are secure, but they are not without privacy risks. Public WiFi means that anyone can use it, and the data transmitted over it is not as secure as the data transmitted over the WiFi available at your home or business.
Some scammers can set up their own free Wi-Fi networks in various locations, allow people to connect to them, and then spy on the data transmitted over those networks, exposing usernames, passwords, banking information, and other details. people at risk.
So if you are in a coffee shop, airport or any other public place that offers free WiFi, be careful what you put on the network, for example avoid entering passwords or payment information to make sure it is correct and there are no risks. Let her concede.