Your smartphone is not secure!
Approximately everyone has smartphones and does everything on it like banking, social connectivity, personal communication, etc. An increase in the use of mobile devices gets the attention of cybercriminals. Cybercriminals are now more focused to attack smartphones including both largely used Android and IOS.
Most cybercriminals are searching for different vulnerabilities in smarts phone which can also exploit millions of user’s data. New mobile malware and viruses are increasing day by day and spreading through different untrusted applications. Let’s discuss some reasons why your phone is not secured.
Mobile Malware
It is kind of a software program that can perform malicious actions without the user’s consent. Malware gets installed with some untrusted applications. It gives an attacker full access to your phone. Following are a list of some mobile malware:
Vulnerability
If a cybercriminal is able to exploit the vulnerability of mobile OS and applications, it can cause a great threat to millions of users. After successful exploitation of the vulnerability, cybercriminals can access user’s sensitive data and perform undesirable actions. Vulnerability in applications will not only affect a single user but it will affect all users of applications, that is why keeping your application and software up-to-date is very important.
Phishing Scams
Cybercriminals often send you link to websites using emails, SMS and different social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc. aim to get your personal info like account number, email, password. To avoid this double-check URLs.
Unsecured Wi-Fi
Connecting to unsecured or public Wi-Fi can also put you at great risk. Most public Wi-Fi isn’t secure. Cybercriminals can intercept the data as it was passing between the device and the Wi-Fi access point. Many applications don’t use proper security protocols and send unencrypted data across networks that can easily readable to cybercriminals.
Untrusted Downloads
You may have seen while surfing online you accidentally click any ad it’ll take you to a new webpage and will automatically start downloading a program to your device. This program is untrusted and could be malicious and can crash your device or applications. Untrusted apps are also not secured because they are not from trusted developers and untrusted developers can create any malicious program to harm your device.
Securing your smartphone(Precautions):
Some of the precautions you need to follow to avoid any threat to your devices:
1. Antivirus is a good tool to detect any malicious program or file in your system. Installing some good antivirus for smartphones can help avoid threats.
2. Cybercriminals exploit the weakness of software or applications to avoid this vendor release new security patches and updates. So keep your applications and software’s updated is very important.
3. Untrusted applications can be malicious and can do harmful actions, so don’t download and use any untrusted applications.
4. Sometimes app use your services that aren’t required by it and become very suspicious. Always check app permission and limit permissions in accordance with its use.
5. It is very common when you visit any untrusted URLs it automatically starts downloading any program without taking your permission which can be very harmful to your device. Avoid automatic unknown downloads from untrusted websites.
6. Suspicious or phishing email contains links that can get your personal information or account numbers. Avoid opening any spam or junk emails and URLs.
7. Encryption is a great way to protect your phone data. Encrypt data can help against data loss. Also, protect your phone if your phone is stolen.
8. Free Wi-Fi is always unsecured and you can suffer data leakage. Using secured Wi-Fi is always recommended.
9. You should also use strong authentication for login to smartphones and applications, sharing your credentials with someone is also very vulnerable and can cause great damage. Use a password that only you know.
Conclusion
Smartphone devices have become so much popular and approx. everyone has smartphones. As we have seen an increase in the use of smartphones we also see an increase in cyber threats to smartphones. Security researcher and antivirus companies are doing best to provide you a great antivirus solution. But mostly attacks happened due to the user’s negligence. Users should understand and follow security steps and should give security utmost importance.