Your phone is also a target — protect it

Your phone today doubles as your wallet, communicator, ID, entertainment, and source of information. It's packed with sensitive data, and that data is becoming a target for attackers.

Your phone today doubles as your wallet, communicator, ID, entertainment, and source of information. It's packed with sensitive data, and that data is becoming a target for attackers. In this article we'll break down how they'll attack you and how to avoid it.

How will they attack me?

1.      Phishing — As with all attacks, phishing is the most common form because it's relatively successful and far and away the easiest for attackers. Most often it's emails impersonating known brands or your customers. The email contains a link that mostly redirects you to a sign-in page or downloads a file containing malware. How to avoid it? The main thing is having experience with phishing emails and being able to spot them. Then, develop the habit of never signing in directly from an email — type the URL into the browser yourself.

2.      Apps — Not every app you download is safe. There are several types of unsafe apps. The first is one that's infected with a virus or malware — these mostly aren't on the regular stores like the App Store and Google Play, although they do occasionally show up on Google Play. Then there are apps that take your data or spy on you. Avoiding these is much harder, because most of us are either too used to them or literally can't function without them. The apps — or rather the companies behind them — are problematic. Companies like Google, Meta, ByteDance (TikTok's owner), and others know a great deal about you, so where you can, try to limit which data you share with them and what access you grant their apps.

3.      Public Wi-Fi — One basic rule you should always follow: don't sign into mobile banking on public Wi-Fi. The router owner can monitor what you're doing and intercept your login credentials directly. No VPN service will save you here, so be careful with public Wi-Fi.

How do I defend myself in general?

-          As always, set a strong password — and biometric unlock if you can.

-          Grant apps the bare minimum permissions they need to function.

-          If you care about the data on your phone, back it up to external storage and/or the cloud.

-          Don't enter your debit-card details on every random store. On lesser-known ones, try to use single-use cards or pay by bank transfer.