While enjoying your day, you might even forget you’ve brought your smartphone with you. However, you might want to take your phone out to snap a picture or two and chat with your friends. Besides accidentally losing your phone, there are other dangers you should consider.
Knowing the best way to handle your smartphone is universal, as you can easily apply them to any activity you decide to engage in. Due to COVID-19, some grant events of the year might have been canceled or implemented without any spectators.
So, your internet-connected device, especially smartphones, due to their mobility, might have become your best friend. Let’s observe how to make sure that you are up for the task of safeguarding your phone.
Turn Off Bluetooth and Wi-Fi When Not in Use
Surprisingly, Bluetooth can be hacked, and the consequences might be rather unfortunate. As you know, this technology allows devices to link to each other over relatively short distances. Without a doubt, it has made our lives much easier. For instance, instead of using a wire to connect our headphones to a smartphone, we connect instantly. No annoying and twisted cables are necessary!
However, Bluetooth is not always the most secure option. There are certain attacks that can affect Bluetooth technology. Bluejacking is one of them. It means that someone sends anonymous messages to a Bluetooth-enabled device within range. It might seem like a prank, but it could be rather harmful.
For instance, if the message contained a malicious link, it could compromise the device. While blue jacking is typically harmless, blue bugging is more problematic. A successful blue bugging attack could let someone monitor your activities and spy on your smartphone’s assets.
Thus, please turn off Bluetooth when it is not in use. The same applies to Wi-Fi. After all, you would not want to connect to a suspicious network, right? Automatic Wi-Fi connections could, unfortunately, make that happen.
Keep Your Phone Locked When Not in Use
Smartphones are getting smarter with every new model. Thanks to the new features, we can now use our phones to do business, pay the bills, and communicate seamlessly. While it’s convenient, it can create many problems if we lose the phone. If you lose your phone, someone may access your private information such as messages, email, payment info, and more.
There’s a simple way to prevent it from happening. Simply enable the lock screen on your smartphone. Anything you choose will work – passcode, face recognition, fingerprint, or pattern. If you don’t have a habit of locking your screen before putting your phone away, enable automatic lock in your phone settings.
Make Sure to Use Strong Passwords
Passwords are the main factor standing between hackers and your valuable data. Unfortunately, many people don’t understand it. They still use the good old “1234” and “password” for their accounts. Millions of people use these passwords, but hackers can easily guess them and get access to your phone and your accounts. You can avoid it if you use strong passwords.
Your password should have at least eight characters, including capital letters and special characters. Now to the harder part – you need a strong and unique password for each of your accounts. Writing down passwords on a piece of paper is no longer effective. You can use password managers to save all of them in a secure vault.
Update Your Apps and Your Phone’s Operating System
The apps on your phone and its operating system are nothing more than software. Software often has bugs that cybercriminals can exploit to steal your information and even download your private photos. Smartphone operating system and app companies regularly release updates to patch these bugs and make the software more secure.
If you don’t want to suffer the aftermath of getting hacked, keep your apps and OS updated. Many new phones have an automatic update feature. Feel free to enable it so that you can enjoy your time online care-free.
Use Security-First Software
Viruses are malicious, and they can do a variety of things with your phone. They can enable cybercriminals to access your camera, take control of your phone, or steal data that you have stored on it. Mostly all infections happen in the digital space as it, sadly, facilitates transmissions of questionable content. Some viruses are so sophisticated that you can get it by just exploiting Bluetooth on your phone.
Since you can never be 100% sure that your phone is virus-free, you should install antivirus software for a smartphone. These programs will keep you safe against viruses and malware. You can even go one step further and encrypt all the web traffic with tools like Atlas VPN. This tool does not require any technical expertise as their usage is very user-friendly.
It renders you anonymous and prevents hackers or other intrusive parties from monitoring you online. If you use your smartphone for confidential tasks such as online banking, a VPN is a must to prevent all attempts to intercept your connections. In other cases, it might become the perfect tool for bypassing geo-blocks and accessing various streams you want to see.
Don’t Install Just Every App on Your Smartphone
Not all smartphone apps are the same. Some may even ask you to permit them to access your contacts, camera, Facebook, and Instagram accounts. However, many of these apps are created by hackers. They may look like the original apps, but they will steal your personal information. Sadly, many of these apps are created by hackers. They may look like the original apps, but they will steal your personal information.
The best practice to follow when downloading and installing apps goes along the following lines:
- Only install apps from Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
- Check reviews.
- Read user comments.
If you follow these tips, your smartphone will become much safer. While you are enjoying each new adventure life brings, doubts about your digital privacy do not have to dim your light. Since you will have adequate protection, your online interactions and activities will remain as private as they can be. So, we sure hope that you will enjoy a secure and pleasant digital journey.
