Protect Sensitive Data on your Phone
Everyday personal and corporate data is downloaded onto the average user’s mobile phone. Whether someone is using their business for personal use, or even using their personal phone for business purposes, data is being stored on these devices. How can we be certain that this data is protected from hackers or even thieves that walk among us on the street?
There are many ways to ensure that our data is being protected and some best practices to help us keep it that way. Here are some helpful tips to keep your phone and your personal or business information protected.
Use a Passcode
Having your phone passcode protected is the first step to making sure that if your device happened to be stolen or swiped, that the thief wouldn’t be able to get into it in the first place. There a couple of ways that you are able to passcode protect your device. The first is having a four-digit code to lock it. This is not recommended. Four digit codes, while still difficult to figure out, aren’t as difficult to figure out as an eight digit or eight letter password would be. Using a mixture of numbers, letters, and symbols is also a great way to make it even more difficult.
Use the auto lock function
Sometimes, life gets in the way and we forget to pick our phone up or we may forget to lock our phones after we are done using them. This can be problematic as someone may swipe your device and already have direct access to it since it is not locked. Setting your phone to auto-lock will help prevent this. By doing this, a timer will be set on the phone to automatically lock itself if it has not been used after a certain period of time. It is recommended to set this to 30 seconds.
Protect your information on the inside
Preparing for the worst case scenario can help you in the long run. Protecting your personal information from the standpoint of after your phone has already been broken into is another step in the process of protecting your information. This can be done in multiple ways and use as many of these methods as possible is the most beneficial.
Passcode protects your private and important applications. With technology making it easier to access banks, credit card information, and medical records all from your phone, you are going to want to protect all of this information as well. Putting passcode or password locks on these apps will help you add another barrier to access for your information.
Be weary of public wifi networks. When you are out in public, stay cautious of public wifi networks, many times they are unprotected and do not have any measures set up to defend against protecting the data that is on a network.
Starting with these tips will help you keep your personal and corporate information out of harm’s way as you use your mobile device throughout your daily life. We already live busy lives, and these tips will ease your mind so you can continue on with your day.