Remember that one time you left your phone at the coffee shop or maybe you almost did? Remember visiting that website on your mobile phone and randomly received a pop-up informing that “You’ve been infected! Please click here to remove the virus!”? These examples and many others have happened to most of us, but when they happened did you secure your phone immediately after or ensure it was still secured?

Mobile Phones are literally a mobile personal handheld computer and a high population of the world owns mobile phones making mobile security a must. We use our phones conveniently for almost everything from browsing, payment, bills, emails, messaging, social media, e-shopping, navigation, home automation, you name it…it’s probably on the list. Our phones probably contain the most private data about us than our wallet, purse, or your mother. How do you ensure the security of all this information?

7 Basic Tips To Secure Your Mobile Phone/Device:

Set a Password – If you don’t already have a password set on your phone, set it now. That one time you left your phone at the coffee shop and your phone wasn’t locked with a password. Someone could have sniffed through all your private information and if you stored your payment information or use your phone to make payments at cash registers, someone could have made multiple charges without your consent. Setting a password ensures that no one can physically or virtually access your mobile device without first unlocking it with a password, PIN, or pattern that only you know.

Anti-Malware Protection – Whether you are using an iPhone or Android device, both are at risk to malware. That’s right iPhone users…even you. Purchase and install an accredited Anti-Malware application from your phones official app store. This can protect your mobile device from many types of malware attacks, attachments, and prevent infection.

VPN – If you browse a lot, consider purchasing an accredited VPN app from your phones official app store. This will ensure that any e-shopping you do, data you enter and send, or sites you visit are encrypted protecting your private information and the privacy of your browsing.

Use Official App Stores – Official App Stores have very strict policies as to what can get published on to the app store. Very rarely will they pass an app that is malicious. When using a third party app store, this security is not guaranteed as malicious apps could be published on these non-official app stores. This is a high risk to you as you could install a fake app posing as an official app or installing an app that isn’t verified through security policies before being published.

Keep Your Phone Up-To-Date – To ensure that your phone has received all it’s security updates, you should always keep your phone up to date and install updates as soon as possible. These updates could include patches to vulnerabilities found in your mobile devices operating system or hardware.

Disable “Unknown Sources” For Android Devices – This should always be disabled as you should not install applications from Unknown Sources. The exception is if you trust the source and know what you are downloading and what the risks are, but to be safe disable this option.

Don’t Jailbreak Your iPhone – Jailbreaking can opening cool features to your phone, but at the same time it also exposes your phone to vulnerabilities. Security protocols could be bypassed which is not intended by the manufacturer and in turn weakening the security of your device.

Next time when you forget your phone at the coffee shop, most you’ll lose is the device as your phones information should be secured now if you followed the basic tips above. If you visited a malicious website unintentionally, you’ll be protected by your Anti-Malware application. You don’t have to take drastic measures to ensure the security of your mobile phone or device. These basic tips will surely do you more good and save you quite a few headaches.

Sources:
PCWorld – How to prevent mobile malware in 3 easy steps
Malwareytes LABS – Top 10 ways to secure your mobile phone
Webroot – Bad Apps: Protect Your Smartphone from Mobile Malware