
Only download apps from the App Store, Google Play, or other official sources, as they constantly screen and remove suspicious apps. Be cautious about installing apps from unknown sources, especially free versions of popular apps. This email address should be different from your personal day-to-day email address, which may be widely known. Use a dedicated email address for authentication and pin number resets. Install app and system updates as soon as they are available, because these updates may be fixing a bug or security issue. Keep your operating system up-to-date, and back up your phone regularly. Change your voicemail password from time to time, too. Avoid using 0000, 1234, your birthday, or similar easy-to-guess codes, and avoid settings for auto-login or saving passwords. Immediately change factory passwords on your phone. What can you do to protect yourself and your mobile device? Here are 15 simple steps that will make you a harder target: These are just two ways that hackers can wreak havoc through your phone. Once you realize what’s going on, most of the time it’s already too late. If you refuse, the app can completely disable your phone until you pay up. Once you’ve downloaded the app - for example, antivirus software - the hackers will ask you to spend money to get rid of viruses it found inside your phone. Malicious code can be inserted into free versions of popular apps. Shore up your company’s first line of defense.Īpps are another way that hackers can infiltrate your phone. Then all your secure verification codes go straight to the hackers, giving them access to your online accounts. But hackers can take control of your phone number and transfer it to a new phone - one that they control. We all feel safer when our bank or email provider sends us a text message with a secure verification code when we’re logging in. Many people use their phone for two-factor identification and password resets. There are all kinds of ways that our phones can make us vulnerable to attack. This reinforces the old adage that the money spent on security is never enough, until there is an incident… and then it is never enough.
The same report says $34 million is spent annually on mobile app development while only $2 million is spent on app security.
Yet mobile device security often gets less attention than security for network systems or even our laptop computers. According to a 2016 report on mobile security by Intertrust, the cost of mobile app hacks and breaches will reach $1.5 billion by 2021.
Once compromised, our phones offer easy access to our personal and financial information, giving hackers the ability to sell that information on the dark web and to ransom our information.īut despite the growing threats to our smartphones, most people - even most corporate executives - still don’t take basic security precautions. Mobile phones have become the new prey of choice for hackers and other nefarious individuals.