Nowadays smartphones are an indispensable part of everyday life. However, great care should be taken because your phone may be more vulnerable than you thought.
Hacking is no longer just an exciting topic for Hollywood films or a danger that affects only large corporations and multinational corporations. No one is immune to cybercrime given the wealth of data each of us has stored locally on their phone or in the cloud.
We are spied on or viruses are being smuggled onto our devices, which use the browser to automatically click on advertisements (to increase the return of investors), connect the smartphone to a botnet or turn it into a real ATM.
Although the thieves are already hampered by so many innovations the craft (think, for example, the two-factor authentication), but there is always a way to do damage. It is therefore better to deal with the enemy and to know where he can lurk.
That is the only way to avoid it. We have put together some tips for you:
1- Avoid public Wi-Fi:
Maybe you did not know it yet, but Wi-Fi hotspots in public places are a haunt for hackers . A criminal with the right knowledge and equipment can see exactly what you are doing online. This concerns sent emails as well as access data for social media platforms or financial data.
However, there is an easy way to protect yourself from attack when you are near a public hotspot: do not use it! If you need to go online, it’s best to use a VPN network which encrypts its activities. Private networks hide the data packets and reliably prevent them from being spied on.
2-Keep your device up to date:
The easiest way to protect your phone from unwanted attacks is to keep it up to date. Update your phone to the latest operating system because updates are often designed to close loopholes for hackers and eliminate bugs, vulnerabilities, and zero-day exploits. For example, Google regularly releases security patches, and Apple updates its iOS with minor updates. The true value of updates is not a modern interface or extra emoticons, but rather the best way to protect your device.
3-Ignore spam:
Spam emails are one of the most popular cybercrime entry points. Suspicious links, password queries, and fake attachments open the smartphone’s gates for numerous threats when clicked. What can you do about it? Quite simple: ignore the spam from unknown persons. If they are known first and last names, it’s best to check for details before pressing a key too hard. Also keep in mind that banks and credit institutions never request personal information via email.
In addition, there are a few simple tricks that can be used to quickly identify fake emails. First, take a look at the sender’s full e-mail address. So you can see immediately if the e-mail actually has anything to do with the displayed name.
Second: Hover over the link to be clicked. Find out if it actually leads to the organization’s website, which is named the sender (bank, company, etc.). Use two-factor authentication Meanwhile, all major websites and apps support two-factor authentication . This is the ability to get a temporary code on a registered mobile number that must be entered regularly when accessing a profile from a new device or in random order, if the system deems it necessary.
So you have to type a few digits after calling a social media page or another service, but also gain more security: For when a third party tries to access a foreign account, he is to enter the text sent via SMS Codes requested. And only you have!
4-Install only official apps:
Another easy way for hackers to gain access to smartphones is by modifying the source code of popular apps that inject malware with viruses, malware, and more. There is only one way to reduce the risk of infestation to a minimum: Download apps exclusively from the original stores and avoid other platforms. As you know, the temptation is great, especially with Android, because here the individual APK files can also be installed manually without difficulty (clicking on the download directory is sufficient).
Therefore, hackers are increasingly targeting fake WhatsApp Premium- or spread Facebook premium apps on the Web to take advantage of the lack of information of many people.
5-Passwords:
Never save passwords in plain text or … It has become widely known that strings like “12345” or “0000” are by no means suitable as passwords . In addition, passwords for used services should not be stored in text files as plain text. How can I remember all passwords? Quite simply: with an app like the Avira Password Manager , which protects the other passwords with a single master password. These can also be used automatically by the apps installed on the phone.
Use biometric recognition methods We will shed more light on this topic in another article. However, that much is already revealed: A biometric access increases the security of the smartphone many times over. The concept is simple: Instead of putting your username and password in it, all you have to do is place your finger on the device’s sensor or use facial recognition (eg Face ID on iPhone X) for instant access to your favorite software. In previous generations of biometric scanners, it was possible to bypass face detection with photos. However, the technical innovation has improved the chips. These now recognize individual details more precisely, which are only perceptible to physical persons.
6-Delete your data when you sell the phone:
It should be people who buy used mobile devices only to look for traces of previous owners. If there is enough information on a phone, the new owner can use it to do a kind of social engineering and thus find passwords and usernames. What could you do with it?
Well, for example, post compromising – and possibly even fake – photos and videos and then ask for their removal ransom. If this is not paid, it will threaten to upload more photos and videos. Or use e-mail accounts to send messages with malicious links from real addresses and to operate so-called “spear phishing”. Be sure to always perform a hard reset before giving away the smartphone. Manually remove multimedia content and accounts manually, and if necessary, download an app that will help you verify that the smartphone is actually clean (for example, Phone Check).