Our phones are extremely important in today’s lives. They contain everything from our personal data to our bank accounts.
So it’s no secret that smartphone hackers are constantly trying to hack your phone and steal your identity.
As hackers continue to refine their tactics, even the savviest users can find themselves victims. But what if you could stay one step ahead?
Read on to discover how to protect your phone from hackers and, consequently, your life from cyber theft.
Protecting Your Phone From Hackers
Here’re all the tips you’ll learn about in this guide so you can protect your phone from hackers so that you can keep your personal and work life safe:
- Use Strong Protection for Authorization
- Avoid Using Public Wi-Fi
- Restrict Installing From Untrusted Sources
- Back Up Your data
- Lock and Wipe Your Data Remotely
- Update Your OS & Apps Regularly
- Don’t Use Public Chargers and USB Cables
- Install Security Software
- Beware of Suspicious Emails and Links
- Never Leave Your Phone Unattended
1. Use Strong Protection for Authorization
Whether it’s about locking your smartphone or protecting your applications inside it, strong protection is the first line of defense.
It depends upon the manufacturer how the security method is implemented. It can be a pin, a pattern, a biometric, or a facial recognition system. Always use strong, complex, and not easily guessable passwords for authorization.
In case the device gets stolen, the adversary won’t get his dirty hands on the personal information in the first go.
The use of multi-factor and two-factor authentication is a good way to secure your smartphones from attackers.
2. Avoid Using Public Wi-Fi
There is nothing such as “Free” in this digital era. Everything comes with a cost, and the cost of losing your digital data, when connecting your smartphone over free Wi-Fi at an Airport, cafe, the shopping mall is a heavy one.
You should avoid using these free available Wi-Fi spots because you don’t know who might be connected on the other end, eavesdropping on your data.
Hackers around the world use this technique to steal confidential information about users.
If the situation compels you to connect your smartphone to free Wi-Fi spots, then ensure to use a VPN, this utility will protect your information from snooping attacks and secure it from being compromised.
3. Restrict Installing From Untrusted Sources
Mobile applications access lots of personal information depending upon their usage. So it becomes important that we install from a trusted source such as Google Play Store or Apple App Store.
Both of these App stores check the security and integrity of each application that is available publicly for download. Still, some applications can bypass this security measure and could pose a threat.
To ensure another layer of security for your smartphone, carefully read the description, reviews, and app permission. Another way is to use trusted antivirus software to scan any malicious app on your smartphone.
4. Back Up Your Data
Making a backup of your data is a significant step. In terrible situations where your smartphone got hacked or taken, backup data can guarantee the safety of your own data.
The use of cloud service providers for data backup would facilitate the recovery of individual files at any point in time.
For your convenience, we’ve amassed a helpful guide on how to back up your iPhone. If you own an Android phone, here’s how to back up an Android phone.
5. Lock and Wipe Your Data Remotely
When your smartphone is stolen, you can lock it and wipe the data remotely to prohibit an attacker from accessing crucial information.
Apple’s Find My iPhone and Android’s Find My Device are two location-tracking features capable of locking the device and wiping the data in extreme conditions. Regular backups would provide the deleted data.
6. Update Your OS and Apps Regularly
There could be a multitude of apps on your smartphone to ease your life, but one vulnerable app is enough to hack your smartphone. This is the reason why you should regularly check for app updates.
Security companies regularly release updates with bug fixes both for applications and the latest security patch for OS.
There are a few things one can do to secure their smartphones from these buggy apps:
- Uninstall the apps which are not in much use. Each vulnerable app poses a threat to your smartphone.
- The removal of accounts linked to vulnerable apps is important because data breaches can reveal personal information.
7. Don’t Use Public Chargers and USB Cables
Security researchers have found that exposed public chargers or manipulated cables can hack your smartphone and lead to the loss of your personal and critical information.
These cables look identical to the ones we use for charging and transferring data from our smartphones, so it’s nearly impossible to differentiate between good and evil.
Always steer clear of these chargers and cables, and focus on using personal charging equipment and power banks whenever necessary.
8. Install Security Software
Both Android and iOS developers have taken the issue of security very seriously and tried to mitigate most of the threats. But hackers have evolved and found ways through which they can harm your smartphone.
For protection, it’s better to use Anti-virus or Anti-malware software downloaded and installed from a genuine source. As previously discussed, forged anti-virus software can cause damage to your smartphone.
Smartphone antivirus apps look for suspicious activity linked with your data and application inside your smartphone.
Their scheduled scans can remove potentially hazardous files. These apps also check the downloaded content for possible malware.
9. Beware of Suspicious Software Emails and Links
Never click on the unsolicited link or the attachments of an email. These can harm the security of your smartphone.
Although opening just an email won’t release the malware, it can send some information related to your device to the attacker.
If you open a suspicious email by mistake, avoid clicking on any media or links available in it. Rather, mark it as spam so that next time the mail server can easily identify it.
10. Never Leave Your Phone Unattended
It might look like a piece of simple advice. Even most hacks can indeed be done remotely. The easiest way would be if they get physical access to it.
Hackers only need a few minutes to run some malicious code or app on your phone and to get access to your device.
Leaving your phone aside in a public place while you are busy meddling in some other work would be a great opportunity for an attacker.
So always keep your phone secured and prefer using biometrics to unlock your smartphone in public places as we don’t know who might be shoulder surfing and see our patterns or pins.
Wrap-Up: Protect Your Phone From Hackers
To keep your phone, data, and contacts safe, you need to be proactive about security—you need to take action to protect yourself.
These 10 tips, which you can implement today, will help protect your phone against hackers and make your personal data less visible, ultimately protecting you in case of a data breach or hacking attempt.
Keep in mind that you may not be able to completely prevent a hacker from taking control of your device or making unwanted purchases. However, these steps should help minimize the damage that someone can do to your privacy or credit if your phone is hacked.
There are plenty of people who don’t take the time to secure their phones and suffer the consequences—be sure that you’re not one of those people.
