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Health & Fitness

Secure Those Smartphones- Or Else

Is your smartphone exposing your personal data? A would be thief or attacker could easily harvest passwords and other data from your phone. Learn how to secure it here.

Smartphones are everywhere. In fact, they are so common that you may be reading this from one of the many that grace our airwaves. With the mobile revolution we've come across cheap, widely available smartphones, simple enough to be used by the everyman. Almost 40 percent of Americans have them.

But they aren't securing them.

The cold truth is that most people don't secure their phones with any tools, as I have seen through my consulting firm's work. Shockingly, most of Lacey does not secure their mobile devices. 

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While people may think that "nothing could ever happen to me", things do happen, and all too often, people learn to secure themselves the hard way- when data breaches.

Think about it, if a stranger were to find your phone, they’d get a boatload of information, ready to exploit.

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Your phone contains:

  • Personal information (contacts)
  • Email addresses and passwords
  • Location and GPS data
  • Web browsing history
  • Passwords galore
  • Online banking and financial data
  • Private pictures
  • Social network passwords

This is the kind of data attackers will look for, for example, after stealing your phone, a would-be identity thief’s jobs was just made a lot easier, as they now know what you look like, what your habits are, and your online credentials. Simply losing your phone can open you up to a whole can of worms trying to rectify the many issues that can result.

So what can you do to protect yourself?

Luckily, there are many options.

You can:

  • Set a secure passcode with repeating numbers for added security
  • Make sure the passcode is not easily guessable (such as 1234 or 609)
  • Set your phone to lock out after a certain amount of attempts
  • Use cloud based services such as Find My iPhone to locate devices
  • Use the more secure Android pattern unlock or face unlock (harder to attack)
  • Encrypt your phone with various password protected apps.

These are just a few ways to stay safe, but always remain vigilant with your digital devices.

Have a question you want answered in this blog or in person?

Contact me.

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