A Straightforward Guide to Keep Your Smartphone Data Safe

It is obvious that smartphones have become quite important to people. It is rare to find a person without a handy smartphone nowadays, and the number continues to grow.

As ownership grows, so does people’s dependence on these devices, making them valuable to others. Your device has personal data, passwords, credit card numbers, and much more. Some of you may even have cryptocurrency wallets inside your phones.

All of this data can be stolen at any time if you do not take proper safety precautions pointed out here.

Smart Internet Use

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An important step to take is to learn how to use the internet safely. There are a lot of things you can do to try to be safe online, like making sure you do not open emails from addresses you do not recognize. Malware can be found on emails from time to time, so screening your emails could help keep you safe.

It is important that you always visit reputable sites when browsing online. You want to stay away from sites that offer questionable material, such as pirated files, which could expose you to malware or viruses. Try your best to stick to popular sites because they usually have a higher chance of being safe sites.

Download Some Protection

You may have a good malware and virus scanner on your computer. These programs help keep you safe while you use your computer and can do the same for your smartphone. As mentioned earlier, there are certain nefarious individuals out there who are starting to see how valuable it might be to hack into your smartphone, and you do not want that.

The best thing you can do is download software that helps protect you from malware, virus, and other attacks that could expose your data to hackers. Some apps offer protection at a price, but there are a few out there that are free. In the end, you have to be the one to decide to spend money on your protection or not since it is your personal data on the line.

Those with cryptocurrencies should definitely download the best security software because the money you have in your cryptocurrency wallet is not insured, so if it is stolen, it is simply gone.

Smartphone Service Matters

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The next thing that may be important to pay attention to is your cell phone service. Each service offers a certain level of security that helps keep your personal data intact, but no company is the same, which is the reason you need to look for the best cell phone service for your needs.

It is important to pay attention to the kind of email verification mechanisms each service company offers customers as well as their SSL strength. You might also want to pay attention to each company’s history with security breaches, which should help you see how good their security is. The good thing is that each company’s ability to secure its customers is actually rated by a score system called CSTAR where the highest score a company can get is 950.

The average score is around 533, so anything higher than that is a good thing for you. Some of the companies with the best scores include Sprint and Telstra though there are a few others.

Public Wi-Fi is Dangerous

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It is common for a person to connect his or her phone to a public wi-fi network for a few reasons. For one, these networks are free, and they save you data that you can use when you do not have access to a wi-fi connection. The problem is there are a lot of people who also connect to the same internet you are connecting to when you use public data, and you never know if someone is connecting to spy on others.

It is important that you have security installed if you are going to be using public wi-fi. You should also make sure that you do not use public wi-fi to do any important tasks, like logging into your bank account. In essence, you do not want to transmit any sensitive information like passwords or other account information when you are using public internet.

Perhaps the best idea if you need to be connected to the internet when you are traveling is to carry a dedicated hotspot that you can keep private, which should make your online activity much safer. Be sure to turn off your wi-fi in public when you are not using it because savvy hackers can use this feature to latch on to your phone.

It is easy to see that keeping your phone safe is a lot more important than it was years ago, and this protection will continue to be vital. Do not take this lightly because your data could be used for all sorts of things, like digital blackmail or identity theft, which could have a detrimental effect on your life.

A Straightforward Guide to Keep Your Smartphone Data Safe was originally published in Hacker Noon on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.