The launch of Apple’s iPhone 7 has been greeted with much enthusiasm.
The new phone comes with all of the latest bells and whistles, including the iPhone 7 Plus’ dual-lens camera. However, when getting a new phone many people give little thought about what they need to do to protect their privacy and security.
Whether you are getting a new smartphone or continuing to use an older model, everyone should be taking precautions to protect their privacy and security.
Here are 10 ways to protect your privacy and security on your smartphone:
1. Password protect your smartphone and use a complex password that cannot be easily guessed. A good way to create a strong password using capital letters, small letters and symbols is to take a phrase, such as IDon’tLikePasswords and just add a couple of exclamation points or other symbols at the end to make a password like IDon’tLikePasswords!!!. This is a strong password, and you can actually use this as a way of creating a base password that you can use to create unique passwords for all of your accounts by merely adding a couple of letters at the end of the password to customize the password for particular accounts. For instance, your Amazon password could be IDon’tLikePasswords!!!ama.
2. Particularly in these days in which ransomware presents such a tremendous threat, you should regularly backup the data, photos and videos from your phone to your computer, the cloud or even a USB external hard drive. Depending on the type of phone you have, your smartphone may already provide a mechanism for backing up your data in the cloud or you can get an app which can be used to do this.
3. Don’t store confidential information on your smartphone. Hackers can’t steal what you don’t store on your smartphone.
4. Disable Bluetooth when you aren’t using it. If you are not pairing it to something, such as your car, you should disable it so that nearby hackers can’t connect to your smartphone.
5. Install mobile security. There are a number of good security software programs that can not only provide protection from viruses and malware, but also can help prevent unauthorized access to apps help detect phishing emails and even provide some protection from ransomware. However, it is important to remember that the best security software is always going 30 days behind the latest zero-day defects, which are newly discovered software vulnerabilities that hackers and identity thieves exploit particularly before defenses are created.
Read more of the original article at USA Today.
