Your hard-working smartphone serves different roles—handling work, play, and personal tasks. However, the risk of loss, theft, or hacking is ever-present. Globally, 81% of individuals use their phone for both personal and work purposes, while 87% of businesses mandate smartphone use. This makes unprotected smartphones prime targets for hackers seeking access to personal and corporate data, highlighting the critical need for robust security measures.Here are some tips on protecting your phone from hackers. By following these, you can ensure your data remains safe!
Table of Contents
Deploy a trusted mobile security application
Even with the most secure operating system and official app downloads, a phishing email or fake app can still deceive you. Therefore, having a backup plan, such as a security app, is crucial to safeguard your device when things go wrong.
Install a security software to prevent malware infections. It can safeguard you from hacks when your other defenses fall short.
Create a strong password
Use a complex mix of letters, numbers, and characters for your password to safeguard your mobile phone. Avoid reusing this combination elsewhere since data breaches can compromise online accounts and endanger your smartphone.
This is crucial because the password on modern Android smartphones and the passcode on iPhones form the foundation for creating your phone’s encryption key. This ensures the data on the smartphone is unreadable to anyone attempting to access it without the password.
If you have an older Android, set up phone encryption separately.
Use a VPN
Choose a VPN, or in other words, avoid using public Wi-Fi networks without security. A VPN shields your connection from hackers, enabling private connections on unsecured public networks at places like airports, cafes, and hotels. Using a VPN ensures that your sensitive information, documents, and activities are safe from prying eyes, offering peace of mind considering how much personal and professional business we handle on our smartphones.
Exercise caution with app permissions
Apps on your device may ask for access to your location, camera, microphone, files, or special permissions, like installing unknown apps. Be cautious when granting these requests.
Apps with these permissions could eavesdrop on your conversations, take photos and videos without your knowledge, or continuously track your location. This makes giving unnecessary permissions almost as risky as installing malware.
Regularly check app permissions and be mindful of access requests when adding a new app.
Remove outdated apps and keep the remaining ones updated
Give your phone a quick once-over: delete those apps you’ve tried once and never used again, along with their data. Some smart applications have accounts that keep data off your smartphone too. Go the extra mile and remove those particular accounts in order to any off-phone data is deleted.
The reason is that each extra app is another one that needs updating or may have security issues. In a time of data breaches, deleting old apps is a smart move. For the ones you keep, update them regularly and turn on auto-updates if possible. Updates introduce new features and often address security issues.
Rely on official app stores for your applications
Both Google Play and Apple’s App Store have safeguards to keep dangerous apps out of their stores. Malicious apps are usually found outside these stores and can run in the background, compromising personal data like passwords, credit card numbers, and more—essentially everything on your phone. Additionally, when browsing app stores, scrutinize descriptions and reviews before downloading apps.
Avoid opening dubious links
Phishing scams are more successful on mobile devices. With limited screen space, many email apps display just the sender’s name, not their address. Mobile devices are also used while moving, making it easier to be tricked by phishing scams.
Avoid clicking on suspicious links. Verify the sender’s email address. Keep in mind, no reputable company or authority will request personal information via email or SMS.