We often don’t pay attention to the fact that smartphones have become an important part of our lives. Whether we’re just chatting or browsing the Internet, they’re everywhere we go. Furthermore, they’re also incredibly important for work and staying in touch with family and friends.
Yet, even though the era we live in is truly incredible, we must remember that there’s a certain type of risk that comes with modern technology. What if we lose our phone or someone steals it? What if it falls into the wrong hands?
If that happens, don’t worry — we’ve got you covered. Check out our top 10 tips to make your phone more secure.
Tip 1: Use a Secure Screen Lock
We think the first step towards phone safety would be to use a screen lock. We just can’t imagine a phone without it, as it’s the first line of defense against snooping. Whether it’s a password or a fingerprint lock, we should always have it enabled.
Tip 2: Use a SIM Card Lock
In case a thief manages to somehow get into our phone, our next line of defense is a SIM card lock. The SIM lock option requires that we input a PIN every time we wish to make a call or send a message. As a result, we can avoid huge carrier bills.
Tip 3: Keep Your Software Up To Date
Software updates for our smartphones don’t just bring fancier interfaces and bug fixes — they come with important security updates too. Operating systems are never perfect, and sadly, there are people who are always looking to exploit this and get inside our devices.
Tip 4: Keep Your Location Settings On
Some people might be paranoid about keeping their location settings enabled. However, they’re incredibly useful in case we lose our phone, or if someone steals it. If the location is enabled, we can track where the phone is. Both Google and iOS come with apps that we can use to follow our phone around.
Tip 5: Avoid Rooting the OS
While rooting is something that developers use in order to get administrator privileges over the OS, it’s an incredibly bad idea for an average smartphone user. Any software with root privileges has the potential to alter the system code and even brick our device.
Tip 6: Always Have Backups of Important Files
Keeping our files and pictures safe has never been easier due to the fact that almost all of us have some kind of cloud storage we can use. Thus, if we lose our phone, we won’t have to worry about losing any important data.
Tip 7: Don’t Install Apps from Dubious Sources
Think of it this way: is there a reason for a benign and useful app to not be listed on an app market such as Play Store or Apple’s App Store? Unreliable apps often contain malware and will try to mess with our phone in one way or another. So, we should never install such apps if we care about the security of our phone.
Tip 8: Encrypt Your SD or Use Vault Apps
Similarly to locking our SIM card, an SD encryption might be the best way of protecting ourselves from losing our files or having unknown people snooping around our private data. Likewise, vault apps can give us the same level of encryption, but we get to choose which files we put in the vault.
Tip 9: Install Antivirus Software
Even though most smartphone operating systems have built-in security features, it never hurts to enhance security by downloading antivirus software. There are loads of good AV apps out there, and many of them are free. Of course, paid versions usually offer better features, but even a free AV app can make a difference.
Tip 10: Use Guest Mode
If we wish to lend our phone to a friend or our child, we should always use guest mode. This mode basically lets other users use the phone for maybe a call or to play a game, without allowing them access to files or apps we don’t want them to see.
Final thoughts
Since we can all agree that using smartphones in the 21st century is inevitable, we have to know how to keep our phones safe at all times. Whether someone steals our phone, or we forget it somewhere, we risk giving away private information to strangers. Therefore, if you follow our 10 tips to make your phone more secure, you shouldn’t have to worry anymore. Keeping your phone safe is easy, as long as you’re willing to take matters into your own hands.
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