How secure is your mobile?

How many of us carry our life’s history and day to day running of it on our Smartphones? Probably, most of us. It has become an extension of us, it’s our diary, bank account, TV. photo album, recipe book, email accounts, social contacts, including video chats and on the odd occasion, we even make phone calls with it! So, by rights, we should be treating it with the utmost care and making sure that it is protected especially with all the personal data of our lives that it stores. But the statistics show that we do not. According to the Norton Cyber-security Insights report, 1 in 3 of us do not password protect our phones (or desktop computer, come to that!)

Cyber attackers are focusing more on smartphones due to the contactless payments schemes that exist now, making them an attractive and easy target due to the lack of our security practice.

The Apps that we happily use on our smartphones, are not all as safe as we assume, a study showed that out of 10.8 million apps that were analysed, 3.3 million were classified as malware!

So, how do we keep our mobiles safe?

1. The number one item on the list is invest in a good Antivirus Software package. You get what you pay for, so chose a good reliable, trusted company like the Norton 360 Range . This will work away in the background, alerting you to any anomalies that try to infiltrate your device.
2. Try to keep up to date with any mobile threats that are evolving by following a good tech account on social media which will keep you up to date with current threats.
3. Wherever possible, do not use your phone to store sensitive files, like bank details, addresses, passwords etc.
4. Avoid suspect websites, and illegal streaming & downloading sites.
5. Avoid public Wi-Fi, unless you are protected with VPN (Virtual Private Network) This is also included with some of the Norton 360 collections.

These are just a few ideas to help keep you and your smartphone from being compromised. Don’t bury your head in the sand and think that it won’t happen to you, it so easily can, so make sure you are not one of the Cybercriminals statistics and keep your Smartphone protected.