Mobile security: A few tips on how to use your smartphone more safely

Phones have become a natural part of our lives. We spend our free time with them, we communicate on social networks, we pay, we shoot and take photos, and we often fall asleep with him in our hands. But all of this makes it an ideal target for thieves and hackers who want to invade your privacy, get rich, or “just” monitor your activities and collect material for later use, whether it’s blackmail or compromising matters.

Start by choosing a brand

We entrust a lot of data from our privacy to the smartphone and often we don’t even realize it. That’s why it’s absolutely essential to think about it when you buy a mobile phone. The vast majority of consumers are interested in the price-performance ratio of the phone and do not think much about a particular brand and its origin and reputation. This can also play an important role.

Quality smartphone brands think about the safety of their users and have their own integrated security platforms, such as the KNOX platform, which is equipped with all Samsung phones. These protect the user from the most common cyber threats. Others leave the question of cybersecurity to the user and then it is up to the user to get one of the mobile antiviruses. Having an antivirus is more than appropriate, as hackers and various fraudsters are increasingly shifting their interest from computers and laptops to mobile devices that contain more and more personal information, including sensitive photos and videos that can be misused for extortion.

Do you lock the screen?

It doesn’t have to be just a hacker who can get into your cell phone. All you have to do is leave your smartphone lying in a public place from time to time and do not use any way to lock the screen. Just a moment and anyone can install malicious or tracking software on your phone. And what is surprising, but currently a big threat are stalkerware, which is installed on their mobile phones by jealous partners. You will appreciate a locked phone even if someone steals it from you or loses it. This reduces the chance of the person concerned accessing your content.

There are several ways to lock the display, from classic PIN codes, where it is necessary to dial random numbers and avoid the chronically known passwords “123456”, biometric locking using a fingerprint to a face scan. They can even be combined, which of course significantly enhances the security of your smartphone.

Secure your data and update

Today, your mobile phone also serves as a repository for important documents that you wouldn’t really like if someone stole them. Therefore, it is good to store such data in a secure part of the mobile phone, which is separated from the normal system at the hardware level, and thus a potential attacker cannot get into it. Quality phones have a directly integrated secure folder, which the user can access again only after entering the password, or by confirming a fingerprint or a face scan. Users can transfer to it all sensitive and sensitive data that they do not want to lose in any case.

Advice at the end?

Update, update and update. Therefore, when choosing a phone, it is important, among other things, to pay attention to how long the manufacturer guarantees you the security of the update. The duration of the aid may vary between two and more years. Update not only your phone’s operating system, but also all applications. And if you don’t use some, you’d better delete them. Only upload applications to your phone from trusted and official stores, and read their ratings and user comments first. Carefully consider what authorization to approve the new application, as it is certainly suspicious when the Calculator application requests access to your camera or location information. Just keep an eye out, because the attackers never sleep.