Nowadays, hackers are rampant to find new ways to harm: ransom demand, theft of bank details, personal photos, sale of your contact list … We save a lot of important data on our smartphones and those – these become prime targets for hackers. Every day new misdeeds of these pirates are reported in the press.
To properly protect your cell phone, it is crucial to take a number of precautions. From password protection to best practices on wifi networks, and today we’re going to give you 5 tips to keep your phone away from hackers.
Here are 5 tips for smartphone users
1.  Keep your smartphone up to date
An up-to-date smartphone is better prepared against external attacks. Maybe you didn’t know about it, if you’re unsure about these updates then contact your nearest cell phone repair shops and ask them if they will help you with it because the software updates regularly provided by cell phone manufacturers and OS developers are not just about adding new features. They also contain security patches aimed at protecting the device against any external threat.
Of course, these updates do not necessarily make your Android phone impervious to any cyberattack. However, they provide additional protection as most of them are designed to fix bugs and remedy security failures.
For better protection against hacking, regularly update your smartphone’s operating system and its applications.
2.  Use a password for access to your smartphone
Who says protecting his smartphone says above all to restrict his access. You shouldn’t give just anyone the ability to access your device and the data on it. And for that, what better than to protect it by password?
Almost all current phones have a password lock system. The key is to choose a secure password that no one can guess. With this in mind, avoid choosing your name, your birthday or the name of a person around you. One of the current best practices is to choose words at random to create a meaningless sentence, and then add numbers, caps, and special characters.
Otherwise, another smartphone unlocking system is also in vogue right now. These are the fingerprint and the iris scanner. The first allows the user to unlock his phone using one or more fingerprints that he has defined beforehand. The second follows the same principle. Except that here, it is the iris of the user that will be scanned in order to activate or not the unlocking of the device. Both systems are quite secure.
3.  Use two-factor authentication for access to major applications
Do you use applications or sites on which you store a large amount of personal information? In this case, it would be safer to rely on two-factor authentication in order to protect your account and your data. Today, most major applications allow this dual authentication process. But what does this actually consist of?
Well, when you log into the app from a new device (or not necessarily), just entering your password won’t be enough to give you access to it. You will also need to enter a temporary code that the social network or service will have sent you by SMS or email.
This process can sometimes seem slow and boring. That said, it effectively protects your personal data against any malicious act initiated by a hacker. A third person who will try to access your account from another device, even if they know your password, will not be able to do so because they will be missing this famous code.
4.  Avoid public Wi-Fi
Hackers do not need to have your smartphone in their hands to be able to access the data stored there. They can enter it remotely using Wi-Fi access points, and more specifically public Wi-Fi networks.
Since this is an open network, it is not sufficiently secure. And just logging in may be enough to expose your online activities. Since the data that passes between your smartphone and the Wi-Fi access point is not encrypted, it will be easy for a hacker to spy on you. He will be able to see the pages you visit as well as the information you enter on your mobile phone.
Whenever possible, you are strongly advised not to use a public Wi-Fi network. But if for some reason you are forced to connect to it, avoid fiddling with sensitive information or at least use a VPN. This protection tool will ensure encryption of your activities.
5.  Beware of apps of dubious provenance
In addition to the applications that originally came with your smartphone, you can install others according to your needs and desires. For Android phones, you can find over 2 million apps on Google Play Store. Normally, before validation by Play Protect, they have already been inspected and found to be secure. So you can install them without worry on your device.
The problem is more with apps that don’t come from the original stores. They are extremely numerous in the Android universe. And hackers sometimes use it to hide malicious strings harboring a virus that automatically runs when the application is launched.
The damage caused by this type of cyber attack can be significant: data theft, taking personal data hostage for ransom (ransomware or ransomware), launching incessant advertisements, etc. And the best way to protect yourself is to install only official applications on your smartphone, that is to say from the original stores and not from a third-party site.
Conclusion
As you will have probably understood, a hacker can access the data on your smartphone in different ways. And the tips we have provided for you here will help you reduce the risk of your device being hacked. The list is certainly not exhaustive. But these few quick tips should help keep your personal information safe.